conscript year nine and ten students and their teachers ,on a roster to pick our food .
Allow fruit pickers to earn an income without any income taxes. Just work picking fruit and take away the money you earn. Allow those on income support to also earn money without income earned from picking affecting their Newstart, Allowances or Pensions.
If this was done people from all over the place would voluntarily go to farms to pick fruit. They'd do this knowing if they earned a hundred dollars from picking they would keep it. This is opposed to the current situation where at best maybe you keep 75% of what you earn. If you are on Newstart Allowancd you will be lucky to 25% of what you earn.
Great disinsentives there.
I went fruit picking when I was a young kid, worked for free, nothing better than being out in the sun shine and fresh air plus great exercise when the owner of the tree chased me and my mates down the road with her walking stick. made me drop all my mangos 
We could have a special hourly rate for african migrants (board and lodging included) and grant citizenship conditional on a few years of work placement on farms
Is it a crisis? If so why not get migrants to do a couple years of it?
When my grandad on my mum's side came here after ww2 he and all the other war displaced did two years Labour on projects.
Edit Similar to what myusername said
Select to expand quoteCraig66 said..
I went fruit picking when I was a young kid, worked for free, nothing better than being out in the sun shine and fresh air plus great exercise when the owner of the tree chased me and my mates down the road with her walking stick. made me drop all my mangos
Gotta give it to you Craig. 
You always manage to put a reality perspective into any discussion you join. 
Select to expand quoteCraig66 said..
I went fruit picking when I was a young kid, worked for free, nothing better than being out in the sun shine and fresh air plus great exercise when the owner of the tree chased me and my mates down the road with her walking stick. made me drop all my mangos
Don't you mean she made you drop all her mangoes
Reminds me of a story I read in Readers Digest decades ago about the old fart whose mate asked him why he always chased the kids nicking his fruit. Because he didn't eat it all and what they didn't pinch would likely rot on the ground.
"Because they do it for the thrill and if I didn't chase them it would be no fun!"
A good idea would be to pay people minimum wage as every other buisiness has too.
Another good idea would be too stop propping up 457 and paying travellers cash and actually pay a wage to Australians.
No one can afford to work for $1 a box of grapes or 300 bucks a weeks to pick 6 tonnes of grapes...........
I picked grapes as a grommet, pay was terrible , conditions were even worse. It's slave labour at best on a lot of farms........Free food and board for 40 hours a week work Hahahaha........
People suggest use migrants to pick fruit,,,,, if we have to import people to pick our fruit we have some pretty big problems with our labour laws.
If we are importing people who have no skills and do not work or have the skills to contribute to society than why did we open the gates?
Got mates who are farmers yes it can be tough ,, and there is no thankyou but when you take 4 tonne of passion fruit to market and get 50c a piece for them it's a shed load of dollars.
Oranges are $6 a kilo in the shop that's two to three oranges in some cases, the farmers get generally half of that $2-3 a kilo ,,, not enough money you say?? Too hard, than don't grow oranges.
If you want to make it as a farmer you can't rely on society to pick your fruit for free cause it's hard....
Diversify and pay people a proper wage or get out like every other buisiness owner has too.
High yield /dollarcrops below,
vanilla beans $5 for two in a container.
kiwi berries $6 for a 200 gram tub that's $30 a kilo same as scotch fillet...
passionfruit 50c each
advocado $5 for one most of the time and $4 if your lucky
One full sized advocado can produce in excess of 1000 advocados in a season , if you have 1000 trees that is a multi million dollar turn over not my problem you decided to grow watermelon and now have to pay people to pick them..
Is there even a fruit picking crisis? Was this in the media somewhere?
Last I saw on this was a few years ago now where a farmer was standing up on one of those chat programs saying 'the local people are too lazy to work' and then later was saying 'there was too much paperwork to fill out for local workers'. Which sort of suggested he was too lazy to do the paperwork for local people and just wanted people to work for him without going to any trouble.
Sounds like a non-problem to me.
Wasn't there also some weird attempt, probably successful, but the government to tax extra out of foreign holiday visa holders? Australia is an expensive place to live, most backpackers spend all they earn here, we want to encourage tourism, but we make it too expensive for them? Sounds dumb to me.
Devinder KhunKhun is a hard working chum of mine and owner of 4 well established large Blueberry farms here in coffs , reckons most Aussies are too lazy to pick and do a bunker soon after employment.
Trying to find the owner of a blueberry farm is most difficult considering the diverse array of nationalities roaming and usually the boss is in their boots an all as well .
Health authorities last year went through the industry and made every farm get a dumpster as people were literally making stool anywhere possible then continue picking , no joke - wash those berries
Free market capitalism should pick the fruits/veggies.
The idea of conscripted students and teachers is very socialist, very Soviet..
I was "forced" to do that in my year 9, 10 and first college year..
It was fun though, good memories.
Devinder sounds like a racist who doesn't like paying minimum wage or providing toilets for his workers.
Sounds like a cool place to work
Devinder was the only indian kid at my high school and I was his only friend, Toormina high school was full of the worst kinda people for anyone different and to see someone rise from nothing to owning an umpire is nothing short of astonishing . But yeah the minimum pay thing is very common amongst blueberry farm owners- prob attributing to the wealth. Blueberry work is full sun , hard and never ending .
Fair trading visited my farm and informed me there were over 100 blueberry farms in violation of basic amenities , prob is ( I'm generalising here, but over 90% of satellite blueberry farms are Indian owned ) bare land is purchased a bore is sunk and a farm quickly underway without any consideration of health and safety as money needs to be recouped quickly .
Fortunately that type of loose cowboy farming is on the nose.
Select to expand quoteSandS said..
conscript year nine and ten students and their teachers ,on a roster to pick our food .
Better still, make all those 19 year olds that 'can't get a job' because everything is beneath them get off their lazy arses and start picking.
I grow fresh produce and pay people properly with all their entitlements. Have crew lining up to get a job...
but the Devinders of the world are the ones I have to compete against. It is so far from a level playing field but the major supermarkets turn a blind eye so they can keep buying their cheap produce.
Fortunately im not forced to sell to them (yet) because there are still enough independents and people willing to pay for higher quality food.
Select to expand quotestoff said..
I grow fresh produce and pay people properly with all their entitlements. Have crew lining up to get a job...
but the Devinders of the world are the ones I have to compete against. It is so far from a level playing field but the major supermarkets turn a blind eye so they can keep buying their cheap produce.
Fortunately im not forced to sell to them (yet) because there are still enough independents and people willing to pay for higher quality food.
Even all the devinders out there are at the mercy of COSTA farms .
Would luv to check out your farm one day stoff , and other seabreeze farmers ( if any? )
Thank god for IGA's and F&Veg wholesalers
In regards to quality It's good to know even the giants are implementing IPM ( prob because of costs and pesticide resistance ) but it's a win for consumers- all they need to do now is reintroduce flavour 
Here is an idea. Maybe allow local people to apply for theses jobs instead of only backpackers. The farmers in my area will only look at people from the hostels.
Here's a generalization.
Farmers are forever whining about things that stop them from making more profit. Not that long ago we had the grizzle about live transport. Now it would appear to be lack of cheap labour.
I imagine that one of the reasons they are having a hard time in the fruit and vegetable industry is because of competition from foreign imports. Like China. Where you pay for permission to come to work.
Which will teach the conservative rural community a lesson. Don't buy the sh1te politicians tell you.
Particularly when it comes to money.
Select to expand quoteChris6791 said..SandS said..
conscript year nine and ten students and their teachers ,on a roster to pick our food .
Better still, make all those 19 year olds that 'can't get a job' because everything is beneath them get off their lazy arses and start picking.
I think teaching the year 9 and 10 s about food growing and production would benefit the nation more than trying to convert already lazy 19 yo .
PS We have failed to teach most year 9 and 10 s to calculate, read, write and draw. So we may as well have a go at teaching food production.
Select to expand quoteSandS said..
PS We have failed to teach most year 9 and 10 s to calculate, read, write and draw. So we may as well have a go at teaching food production.
In a lot of cases most students fail to be taught, as in they are to lazy to sit and learn.
Disclaimer on this as my daughter is a teacher, and im proud of her.
There you go cisco, "reality perspective into any discussion"
Select to expand quotedmitri said..
Free market capitalism should pick the fruits/veggies.
The idea of conscripted students and teachers is very socialist, very Soviet..
I was "forced" to do that in my year 9, 10 and first college year..
It was fun though, good memories.
So , you enjoyed it . good memories !! I rest my case !! You more than likely learnt some stuff, because in order to learn, the learner should be having some enjoyment.
Select to expand quoteSandS said..I think teaching the year 9 and 10 s about food growing and production would benefit the nation more than trying to convert already lazy 19 yo .
I think Chris' post refers to the 19y/o 'poor nursing student' on the front of the WA paper two days ago - can't get a job, applied for 40 in 4 weeks.
Plenty of flak for her over here...
In Gero, we have a tyre retailer advertising for weeks on radio- so tens of thousands of dollars in ads- to find a tyre fitter. 
that's crazy. In the early 1990's as a uni student my friends and I could not find a job unless daddy knew somebody or it was a **** job with **** pay and even then it took a year of trying.
Select to expand quoteChris6791 said..
Better still, make all those 19 year olds that 'can't get a job' because everything is beneath them get off their lazy arses and start picking.
Ban the backpackers working at all, not just the second year visa crap in the country areas, but also in the pubs, clubs and restaurants and where ever else in the big cities.
417 visa holders back to where they came from. Require the doleys go to where the work is with subsisised accommodation if necessary and run like a boot camp. Shape up or ship out with no dough or join the military if you are good enough.
They have lowered the bar so much lately that just about anybody can get in. Discipline is what is needed in big doses.
Does this sound a bit Clive Palmerish? I would not trust the fat prick as far as I could kick him but he has come out with some very populist ideas.
We'd have a shidt customer service in hospitality if we had dole bludgers instead of nice mannered European staff, dole bludgers don't want to work full stop, the rules are piss weak making them work,
as for the military I wouldn't want someone alongside
me who didn't want to dig in when things got fruity , ask most employers good staff are hard to find
As a skilled migrant I was entitled to nothing
for 2 years family included, no work , no money we were going home, I stepped out of Perth airport with a missus n 2 kids and didn't know to go left or right
within a few weeks we were working, rented a place , kids loving school etc, we've been successful over here through a work hard ethic and employ 8 great staff, being a lazy
carmt is a personal preference
Select to expand quotecisco said..
Ban the backpackers working at all, not just the second year visa crap in the country areas, but also in the pubs, clubs and restaurants and where ever else in the big cities.
417 visa holders back to where they came from. Require the doleys go to where the work is with subsisised accommodation if necessary and run like a boot camp. Shape up or ship out with no dough or join the military if you are good enough.
They have lowered the bar so much lately that just about anybody can get in. Discipline is what is needed in big doses.
Does this sound a bit Clive Palmerish? I would not trust the fat prick as far as I could kick him but he has come out with some very populist ideas.
It is the schools fault they should teach discipline and manners.
Select to expand quotehilly said..cisco said..
Ban the backpackers working at all, not just the second year visa crap in the country areas, but also in the pubs, clubs and restaurants and where ever else in the big cities.
417 visa holders back to where they came from. Require the doleys go to where the work is with subsisised accommodation if necessary and run like a boot camp. Shape up or ship out with no dough or join the military if you are good enough.
They have lowered the bar so much lately that just about anybody can get in. Discipline is what is needed in big doses.
Does this sound a bit Clive Palmerish? I would not trust the fat prick as far as I could kick him but he has come out with some very populist ideas.
It is the schools fault they should teach discipline and manners.
"It is the schools fault they should teach discipline and manners."
exactly , and how food grows and gets harvested !!!
As a teenager in Nth Qld my brother, myself and mates would pick mangoes n send to markets in Brissy, Syd n Melb. We would pick, wash n pack and one of the parents would drive the trays to the station before school and we would load them ourselves onto the train. Could not happen now because of all the whs bs. (we wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the train wagons these days) From memory we were getting about $4 -$5 a tray for commons and $12 - $15 a tray for bowens. Not as many varietys back then. Don't know what the hourly rate calculated to but it was fun, what Kid doesn't want to be out climbing trees and getting paid for it.
(modern kids) Syd and or Mel was a pain because we had to get them fumigated for fruit fly or something.
This was all before the advent of mango farms/plantations. Cane farmers would have small orchards but not on the scale there are now. Most the trees we picked were growing wild (so to speak) or In peoples back yards. We would ask if we could pick them most people said yes otherwise when they ripen and fall to the ground its a hell of a mess to clean up for the home owner. Some would say f off.
Nothing wrong with fruit picking for kids.
