Farmers refute Alannah MacTiernan’s comment they aren’t paying enough to attract local header drivers this harvest

A row has broken out between grain growers and Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan after she said farmers should consider paying harvest workers more to attract people to the industry. Ms MacTiernan said on ABC radio today that farmers needed to pay more than $25 per hour to lure desperately needed skilled header drivers for the 2020 harvest. Her comments come as the State’s grain industry faces a drastic shortage ofdrivers for the looming harvest, because they cannot access European farm workers because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. WAFarmers grains section president Mic Fels said a lot of farmers were irritated by the Minister’s comments. “It’s very unhelpful to our cause when trying to attract people to the industry to say we’re not paying enough,” he said. Mr Fels said businesses conducted their own pay negotiations, but in general, only inexperienced, first time drivers were being offered $25 per hour. Good returning header drivers were typically offered from $35 per hour, with many farmers paying more than $40 per hour, he said. Shadow Agriculture Minister Steve Thomas said Ms MacTiernan’s comments were an insult and slap in the face for hard working farmers. Dr Thomas said the Minister’s comments were an inadequate response to the impending crisis of a shortfall of farm labour, and represented “government flip-flopping on policy” when the rest of Australia was looking at an international solution supported by the Federal Government. The Federal Government announced last week it had developed a national plan to allow seasonal and Pacific workers to fill farming’s labour void and help support Australia’s COVID-19 recovery. Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said he had written to State and territory agriculture ministers, urging them to work with their colleagues and farming sector to take advantage of the reopening of the Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Labour Scheme. Ms MacTiernan said the WA Government had been very clear with industry it could not rely on the hope that international labour will be available in the coming months. “Our hard border is in place to protect Western Australians, and that will remain in place until the health advice suggests otherwise,” she said.