ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A plan put forward by the Federal Government to incentivise the nation’s youngsters to pick fruit is being tabled this week by the Prime Minister.
The move comes as fruit growers, who’ve been reliant on imported labour for decades, face a shortage of people they’re able to exploit in order to maximise their profits.
People from the South Pacific, as well as backpackers, have long been subject to illegal work conditions and poor wages in return for a second-year visa or the chance to send money home to their communities.
However, the Hubei spicy lung as all but cut off the fruit grower’s supply of labour, leaving the government to come up with a plan to close the gap.
Speaking to the media in Sydney this morning, Scott Morrison said his government is working closely with fruit growers to find a solution.
“We will provide incentives for young people to head out into the bush to pick Aussie fruit,” said Morrison.
“Incentives like fair working conditions and livable wages. Something that a lot of our nation’s young white people have come to expect as a birth right. And it is their birth right. So who are we to deny them the opportunity to be well-paid and experience something new?”
“No, this will be great. I can see it now. Busloads of long-haired yahoos, being sent by Mum and Dad out to the bush to harden up. They’ll pick fruit all day, party by night. They might even kiss each other and make babies. You know, the real Australia.”
One local citrus grower has lashed out at the plan, telling our reporter that he’s already being fucked by the supermarkets and how he fears he’s about to be fucked by the government.
Danny Roother, of Roother Stonefruits and Citrus out on the Betoota City Limits, explained that his margins are already too thin.
“What?! I’m supposed to pay some clumsy softcock to do me two bins a day with a lunch hour spent under a mango tree playing on his phone? That’ll just about fucking do me,” he said.
“I mean, it boggles the fucking mind, it does. Scott Morrison is pretty much going to railroad me into paying these little fuckers like they’re pouring beers in some French Quarter taverna? Like they’re just working some job while they’re studying?”
“Look, the quickest way to fix this is to make the supermarkets pay us properly for our product. Pass the cost onto the city-based consumer. They already have it all, why can’t we have a bit of a break?”
More to come.
