Aussie dole bludgers too lazy to Work

[nero_bolt]

Job snobs: Aussie dole bludgers too lazy to pick up $250 a day picking fruit

YOUNG, jobless Aussies are lazy and unwilling to break their welfare dependence, ­according to leading wine producers and citrus growers who are becoming ever more reliant on backpackers to stay in operation. 

Despite an urgent need for unskilled workers, regional Australia is struggling to ­attract young people from the city despite youth unemployment in Western Sydney peaking at 17 per cent, forcing growers in the nation’s food bowls to look overseas.

Wine growers in the Hunter Valley who still rely heavily on fruit pickers, claim there has been no interest from ­unemployed youth in Sydney to earn easy cash — up to $250 a day — picking grapes, as the region prepares for today’s official start of the 2015 harvest.

So it is backpackers or bust, with several operators claiming without the injection of foreign workers, many wine producers in the Hunter Valley would cease to exist.

‘‘We would probably be stuffed without them. The problem is, our unemployed don’t have to work, it’s too easy for them, plus a lot of them come with baggage; real problems,’’ winemaker and former chairman of the Hunter Valley Wine Industry Association’s viticulture committee Ken Bray said.

‘‘They are too reliant on welfare and don’t want to go where the jobs are.’’

While most of Drayton Wines grapes are picked by a mechanical harvester, manager John Drayton said the winery still uses backpackers to pick from older vines.

He, like Andrew Pengilly from Tyrrells Wines, rarely gets ­interest from locals or those struggling to find work two hours away in Sydney.

‘‘Should unemployed youth be coming up here to pick? Well, I’m a bit old school. Yes of course. A lot of people are saying that up here,’’ Mr Drayton said.

‘‘But that is the feeling about the whole society. People are ­unwilling to work.”

Across the state’s Riverina, the food bowl of NSW, the need for unskilled workers continues undiminished, despite it qualifying for the Howard government initiative to give foreigners an ­extension to their working visa if they work three months in rural Australia.

While the need for workers grows, the appeal for ­unemployed city residents appears non-existent.

‘‘There are definitely a lot of opportunities in rural Australia, but it seems people think the change would be too stressful.

“We don’t have fast food joints open 24 hours a day, or big shopping centres,’’ Griffith orange grower Vito Mancini said.

‘‘Just come out for a month, try it out. Don’t say there is no work about, because there is plenty.’’

Fellow Griffith farmer David Dissegna said: ‘‘The unemployed don’t want to do this kind of work. We would be in dire straits without foreign workers.’’

Fruit growers are not the only business owners lobbying the government to relax 417 visa restrictions, ahead of the tabling of the Northern Australia Development whitepaper next month.

In regional Queensland backpackers are keeping towns afloat.

‘‘We’ll give a job to anyone who’ll pull on a pair of work boots and have a go,’’ McKinley roadhouse owner Aidan Day, 65, said.

The number of working holiday visas has grown by a third since 2008 and visas for 18-to-30-year-olds are being fast-tracked to 48 hours.

 BACKPACKERS UP FOR HARD WORK IN OZ

IN Germany Denny Spaeth sits ­behind a desk working in a car manufacturing plant, but in ­Australia he is a man of the land, driving a forklift and heaving ­pumpkins out of the ground.

Mr Spaeth and girlfriend Jennifer Herde, a kindergarten teacher, are among the flood of European backpackers who earn travelling money working as fruitpickers. They are not afraid of a hard day’s work.

The couple arrived in Australia in August and worked for two months in Ayr, near Townsville, picking pumpkins, watermelons and squash. Mr Spaeth was able to earn $23 an hour driving a forklift.

The couple will spend the next month pricking grapes in the ­Hunter Valley. Mr Spaeth said they had loved their time Down Under and working on farms was hard but satisfying work.

“It’s life experience. You learn a lot about yourself and it would not be bad for young people,” he said.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/job-snobs-aussie-dole-bludgers-too-lazy-to-pick-up-250-a-d...

[aps1080]

I refuse to pay what they ask for a lot of stuff.

[ten*teeny*tiny*toes]

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@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

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@icyfroth wrote:

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@ten*teeny*tiny*toes wrote:

Before I decipher all the blue print....Only replying to one of your questions Icy 

IQ - backpackers from all sorts of backgrounds, uni, banking just paying their way for the holiday of a lifetime.

We took in a backpacker once, hated the experience btw, but I think in a season she sent at least 10 grand home.

Yes, heaps of money goes out. Heaps

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You say there's heaps of money to be made, Teeny? Heaps?

That cancels out the theory that the cost travel and accomodation for interstate workers would cancel any earnings they could make, doesn't it?

Like, how does $4 per hour (quoting Siggie) equate to heaps? LIke $10.000 sent home?

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 If her foreign friend sent $10, 000 home....... I don't think she was picking fruit.........lol.

She might have been "doing" something else to supplement her income.

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Lol siggie, she didn't have time for that! In the height of the season she was doing 10-12 hour days with only one day off. I dont think the hourly rate is that special but they do a lot of hours, so are quite cashed up by the end. They start arriving here in May and stay till November. I certainly wasn't mocking or questioning your $4 per hour, just sharing what I have witnessed and personally experienced up here.

[icyfroth]

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@ten*teeny*tiny*toes wrote:

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@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

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@icyfroth wrote:

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@ten*teeny*tiny*toes wrote:

Before I decipher all the blue print....Only replying to one of your questions Icy 

IQ - backpackers from all sorts of backgrounds, uni, banking just paying their way for the holiday of a lifetime.

We took in a backpacker once, hated the experience btw, but I think in a season she sent at least 10 grand home.

Yes, heaps of money goes out. Heaps

---

You say there's heaps of money to be made, Teeny? Heaps?

That cancels out the theory that the cost travel and accomodation for interstate workers would cancel any earnings they could make, doesn't it?

Like, how does $4 per hour (quoting Siggie) equate to heaps? LIke $10.000 sent home?

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 If her foreign friend sent $10, 000 home....... I don't think she was picking fruit.........lol.

She might have been "doing" something else to supplement her income.

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Lol siggie, she didn't have time for that! In the height of the season she was doing 10-12 hour days with only one day off. I dont think the hourly rate is that special but they do a lot of hours, so are quite cashed up by the end. They start arriving here in May and stay till November. I certainly wasn't mocking or questioning your $4 per hour, just sharing what I have witnessed and personally experienced up here.

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Well that just proves the theory that hard work has it's rewards. I be she was pretty fit at the end of it too!

[***super_nova***]

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@ten*teeny*tiny*toes wrote:

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Lol siggie, she didn't have time for that! In the height of the season she was doing 10-12 hour days with only one day off. I dont think the hourly rate is that special but they do a lot of hours, so are quite cashed up by the end. They start arriving here in May and stay till November. I certainly wasn't mocking or questioning your $4 per hour, just sharing what I have witnessed and personally experienced up here.

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May - November that is 6 months working 60 - 70 hours a week and ending up with only $10 000 shows that the rates are very exploitative.  That comes to saving only about $340 a week.  Working these hours I doubt she would have had time to be spending money on  much else but food and rent.  So that means she would be earning about $500 per week , less than $10/hour. 

[lloydslights]

I'm too lazy to do the sums.

Consider TTTTs person, doing exactly the same amount of work on her native homeland garden/nursery and earning only $1/hour.  To survive.

They sacrifice, leave home, scrimp, save to get ahead.  

These workers are  doing something with ambition for a better life for their families.

DEB

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

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@aps1080 wrote:
I refuse to pay what they ask for a lot of stuff.

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   I walked past squash at Woolies the other day...... they wanted about $4.98 for 4 squash.

   They are still just a vegetable...... and not about to lay a golden egg.

 Plus my neighbour gives them to me for free, as he grows  and picks them himself...........

[ten*teeny*tiny*toes]

I didn't offer an opinion either way, but they flock here every year so there must be something in it for them.

And the 60/70 hour weeks are not the for the full 6 months. I believe they earn more like $20 an hour.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

Do they pay tax?

[lyne-flyn]

I don't know if it is still the same but when we were smallcrop farming 20 odd years ago they were taxed at the same rate as everyone else for 30 days then if they didn't give us a Tax File Number they were taxed 50 cents in the dollar...needless to say very, very few stayed more than 30 days..they just moved onto another farm.

[aps1080]

I am lucky, 3 coles, 2 Woolworth's, a number of Fruit and Veggie shops so plenty of competition.
The GF found a new fruit shop the other day, kills Woolies for price.

We also have 2 aldi store.