Working as a retiree, for farmers to pick the nations crops

Bicyclecamper · Guru

Working as a retiree, for farmers to pick the nations crops

Whenarewethere · Guru

I'm exhausted swapping batteries in the leaf blower.

bgt · Guru

I did physical hard work out in the field for 20+ years. Backs buggered. And I think I'm buggered. I would love to have ago. I would try anything. But physical I'm struggling to pull my socks up in the morning. My legs have gotten longer or my arms have shortened. Some say they are to short to reach the bottom of my pocket!!

An aside. Some years back I gave evidence and a submission to a federal senate hearing. It was about this exact same topic. Retirees being employed on farms during busy seasons. Senators thought my submission was great. Free, or low cost camping, was a part of the deal. Sometime later I heard back from the hearing. The ATO had knocked it on the head. They ruled that any 'free or low cost' camping would be deemed as income!!! So nothing happened.

DMaxer · Guru

I addressed this on another post but the simple reason that nobody wants to go and pick fruit is because the work is very hard and the money is lousy. I know the media love to portray this situation as a poor hard working farmer and a load of people not wanting to work but that is not the case. The majority of these properties are owned and run by large companies, some not even Australian owned. In student days I worked as a labourer, taxi driver, barman, you name it. I had a couple of summers picking fruit and never again. I could earn as much in a few hours working as a barman as I could in a day picking fruit.

Pay a reasonable amount, throw in some assistance with accommodation and the problem would be solved.

Whenarewethere · Guru

I take it the ATO put a dollar value on zero value!

bgt · Guru

Yes the ATO would have deemed a commercial camping rate. As for the farmer actually being owned by overseas interests I simply don't believe that statement. Show me the facts. Some maybe but not the local strawberry farm. We employed 60+ workers in season. Some knew how to work. Some were so slow that it was painful to watch them. Some folks simply don't have the ability to do manual work. We are becoming too soft. We want everything the easy way. Heck we won't even go camping without the a/c and the generator. It's too easy to do nothing and complain when asked to do anything.

msg · Guru

bgt wrote "As for the farmer actually being owned by overseas interests I simply don't believe that statement"

I do. The mantra today is export market and sell. Export everything. Make lots of money. who cares that they are using up scarce resources that belong to all Australians (like water, fish and lobsters)

I know that in the area I lived in there are very few local family businesses left. They have all been purchased by overseas investment companies. (mostly chinese who send the produce overseas.)

Think of all the vast cattle stations. How many are owned by Australian companies. I know of one that I was connected to was purchased and closed down by chinese interests they are keeping it non productive until for what reason? and it goes on and on.

Why is there no affordable housing? Overseas interests want prime land. They are buying up the market. There are only three Australian owners left in our street. The rest of the houses have been sold at highly inflated prices to overseas interests. The real estate greedies are making huge commissions so they are not complaining. They will make even more commissions when the houses are knocked down and turned into highrisers and they then sell the slum apartments at inflated prices. Never ending pot of money for them. All the while there's little benefit to Australians.

-- Edited by msg on Monday 24th of May 2021 04:09:07 PM

Whenarewethere · Guru

The work doesn't need to be physical. I built architect models. Over the years I noticed that my eyesight was not as good as it was.

Wearing glasses solved some issues, but not all. Overall I actually still have pretty good eyesight 20/15. I started doing more detailed work in the morning & basic stuff at the end of the day.

I was very efficient & even surprised myself how quickly I could get detailed work done. Also noticed over the years finding little work around to achieve the same level of quality.

But at the end of the day, I am older & it is simply more difficult to do the same level of detailed work. The same with computer 3d models. Two 32 inch screens only help to so far.

Just how it is, one has to do different jobs as you age. Whether it's paid or not... a hobby!

Greg 1 · Guru

DMaxer has it in one. The money is atrocious and the hours hard and long. It's no wonder they cannot attract people to do it other than overseas workers who are happy to accept very low wages and often fairly poor accommodation, as it is better often than what is on offer at home. As a young bloke I tackled a few of these sorts of jobs from seeding to harvesting and shearing shed work including shearing. The shearing sheds were pretty well paid but back breaking work none the less. I know that I couldn't do it now. The old body just doesn't want to keep the appointments that the brain keeps dreaming up.

dogbox · Guru

the overseas people come here work for the money on offer, then go home as basically well to do, by their home country standards .
australian are use to high living standards and high wages an the work is to hard . the same thing happens in the UK an western Europe the eastern europeans and asians come from a low living standard , do the work that the locals won't do then go home with a pocket of cash if the fast talking middle men do not fleece them .

bgt · Guru

I asked for facts about who owns Australian farms. Most 'experts' come up with a max of 13%. That figure has been stable for several years.

If you make a statement about farmers and who owns them please back it up with facts. The vast majority of Australian farms are small family owned affairs.

Tony LEE · Guru

Picked apricots for a few weeks during first year summer holidays. Lousy money but the evenings spent with girlfriend compensated somewhat.

On an entirely different tack, Betty and I were accredited teachers and I had a bus driving ticket for NSW, so we figured we could be very helpful casual teaching in isolated country towns. Borroloola for instance had a list of about 20 "jobs" they were desperate to fill - teachers, tutors, bus driver, mentors reading supervisors etc etc ALL of which we could fill EXCEPT that first we had to get a police blue card - 4 weeks and 50 dollars, then to teach was another major paper exercise taking weeks and costing over 100 dollars each.

Bus driving - police check, get local licence and be accredited. And who is willing to hang around for a month sorting all that out. Then for each state the whole rigmarole all again. We did finish the process for Tasmania and I did drive a school bus for a few weeks but to get accreditation for the whole of Australia would have cost nearly 1000 dollars each PER YEAR.

Nope, not that keen to do work that I barely tolerated even before we retired.

So multiply our experience by several thousand and you wonder why grey nomads are happy to sit under the awning enjoying the scenery. If we want a change, we just find a station that is happy for a bit of company and spend a month doing not much in exchange for a bit of fuel and meat or whatever

-- Edited by Tony LEE on Monday 24th of May 2021 04:17:57 PM

Tony LEE · Guru

Foreign interests own around 4.6% or 2.5 million hectares of agricultural land in NSW and the ACT, according to the 2017-2018 Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land. This compares to 13.4% nationally where the United Kingdom tops the foreign ownership charts, followed by China and then the US.

www.nswfarmers.org.au
Who owns Australia's land and water? - NSW Farmers

Remember a few years ago when everyone was up in arms about Japan going to own the whole of Australia? Or was is just golf courses.

Well it was the Poms all along that we're stealing Australia back from under our noses

-- Edited by Tony LEE on Monday 24th of May 2021 04:27:05 PM

bgt · Guru

Tony bureaucracy has always been a problem. But it's now getting harder and harder. It's all "Yes minister". There's 80 pages of questions to get any money for fire victims.

Keep in mind that land area and the number of farms are two different figures. Everyone jumps up and down about water rights being owned by foreigners. It's about 10%. IMHO it should be 0% but that's another story. From day 1 Australia has had huge foreign influence/ownership. (OK day 1 of white settlement). The 'poms' and 'yanks' have always owned a slice of Australia. The media pumps it up but the facts never support their stories.

Whenarewethere · Guru

Tony LEE wrote:
On an entirely different tack, Betty and I were accredited teachers and I had a bus driving ticket for NSW, so we figured we could be very helpful casual teaching in isolated country towns. Borroloola for instance had a list of about 20 "jobs" they were desperate to fill - teachers, tutors, bus driver, mentors reading supervisors etc etc ALL of which we could fill EXCEPT that first we had to get a police blue card - 4 weeks and 50 dollars, then to teach was another major paper exercise taking weeks and costing over 100 dollars each.

Other half was a teacher & taught at University in the evenings at times. She would like to teach a bit, but the police checks, first aid test and all the bureaucracy is too much.

The other issue the constant change if computer systems. She barely got her head around one system & then they change it all again.

Dicko1 · Senior Member

bgt wrote:
I asked for facts about who owns Australian farms. Most 'experts' come up with a max of 13%. That figure has been stable for several years.

If you make a statement about farmers and who owns them please back it up with facts. The vast majority of Australian farms are small family owned affairs.

Screenshot 2021-05-25 085326.jpg

Mike Harding · Guru

Yep, the hell with hard manual work! Did it when I was younger but for many years my manual labour has been pressing keys on a computer and wielding a soldering iron. I did not retire (semi retire?) in order to do hard physical work for minimum wage or less.

If farmers want more labour (and the ABC has convinced me they do) then they must do as everyone else in free market economies does; pay higher rates, provide better working conditions (accomodation) and charge higher prices - maybe ColesWorth need to trim their margins too and I must accept carrots will cost 50c more per kg.

Bicyclecamper · Guru

Well, at least people here, are sensible, and are less like to waste their time and struggling family farmers money. Yes it would be really hard to go back to hard physical work, and then most probably be penalised by the ATO, for doing the right thing by the country's farmers and the economy. The government wont help us help the farmers in any way whatsoever. As greed comes into it on their part. I am not normally the one to bag the unemployed, but this is just the work that maybe they should be forced to do, instead of those crappy Work For The Dole programs, that get them nowhere.. Having never been on the dole, I don't know what it is like to live on that small amount of money, but most farm jobs are paying at least $26 per hour, ( the reputal one's are anyway), AND IF THE government got involved properly with using the unemployed to work these farms, the workers would be paid proper wages.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Tuesday 25th of May 2021 12:46:59 PM

Whenarewethere · Guru

Years ago the ATO stopped my GST & ABN. I was doing one architecture job a year which I enjoyed. A lot of money over a very short time.

But I got the message from the government, they didn't want me to work!

I would be quite happy doing the one job a year, but it is not worth the hassle.

So, less income, less spending, less tax. That's what the government wants!

bgt · Guru

Keep in mind not all the on farm work is hard yaka. There's driving jobs. Work in packing sheds. etc etc. But until the borders open and the back packer come back, if ever, then what are the options?

We have friends in the USA who 'hate' the Mexicans coming into their country. Fair enough. But when I ask them how much they are willing to pay for their strawberries the subject gets changed. When we are complaining about the price of our farm products just keep that in mind.

I'm all for opening up to Pacific islanders coming here. Minimum wage plus a bonus based on piece rate.

Whenarewethere · Guru

England has the best strawberries, but I am not sure on labour rates, but they are cheaper than Australia.

bgt · Guru

We grew 60000 strawberry plants. I cringe every time I think of picking strawberries. But someone has to do it.

Collo · Senior Member

I'm with Dougwe, after 44 years of manual labor, I can't say w..., w..., w...,. Nope, can't do it!

Collo.

peter67 · Guru

Well I hear the gummint is still trying to lift retirement age, and no offence to office workers but....50 yrs of hard skilled manual labour most of it outside from freezing cold winter mornings to heat wave summers is about all the work you should have to do. The gummint people who decide all this sit in comfortable climate controlled offices, most have no idea what's it's like in the real world and that's a problem we will also suffer, more so in the future as these ninnies come up with more thought bubbles. A pox on them I say.

Craig1 · Guru

Yep, wombat ted back, wombat ted hip, desk sitters have nfi N F I . at all at all

-- Edited by Craig1 on Wednesday 26th of May 2021 01:46:03 PM

DMaxer · Guru

That "ted" you refer to Craig, is he related to Wallaby Jack?

Craig1 · Guru

Could be I guess, but back and hip more like wombat I suppose, eats roots and ..

DMaxer · Guru

Well the one I knew Craig had more to do with kangaroos.

peter67 · Guru

Nah you're all wrong, it's kiwis...eats r@@ts shoots and leaves.

DMaxer · Guru

I think the report that was published today setting out the lousy wages and atrocious conditions for people picking fruit and vegetables is a fair indication why nobody in their right mind would take on the job.

One does not need to be Einstein to work out that if you pay low wages no one is going to be working in that industry.