Ian*, a retired farmer, refers to the two Solomon Islanders living on his farm as “emancipated slaves”. He met James* sitting on the veranda of a house near a blueberry farm on the NSW mid-north coast. He stopped to chat, as he does with many of the blueberry workers in the area.
James explained that he was in debt to the farmer for repairs on his car. His passport had been taken, his wages docked and he had no money for food.
Ian gave him his number, and a few days later James called. He now lives at Ian’s farm.
Helping seasonal blueberry workers has become Ian’s mission.
He hands out cards offering support phone numbers in supermarkets, at the local services club and in the street to workers from the Pacific islands, Asia and Europe who flock to the area in the picking season.
The number of people in need of that support points to a dark underbelly of exploitation in the blueberry industry that authorities appear incapable of dealing with.
The industry has been growing steadily in parts of the mid-north coast for more than two decades and has expanded rapidly in recent years. The tonnage of blueberries produced in Australia jumped an astounding 40% between 2022 and 2024, with the mid-north coast the epicentre of production.
Driving around the hills, Ian points out dongas on farms, houses in town and run-down motels used to house workers in conditions that would shock many Australians.
James, who is 33, and his fellow Solomon Islander Janis*, 41, say they stayed in an old caravan in one mid-north coast town with a makeshift annexe with curtains for walls, where eight workers were paying $150 a week each.
“They charged us $10 for using the washing machine, which was outside,” Janis says.
In Park Beach, Coffs Harbour, there were 20 people in a house.
“One person sleeps in the pantry. The lounge room – they partition it into two rooms. Two bathrooms to be shared. You needed to line up for everything: the toilet, the kitchen,” Janis says.
“In one house I was sleeping in the old toilet,” says James, demonstrating how he had to curl up on the floor. “There were 15 of us.”
‘Semi-organised crime’
The exploitation does not stop at overcrowded houses.
Underpayment and employers who “clip the ticket” at every opportunity are commonplace.
Workers speak of paying $10 each way for transport to the farm or for use of a kitchen, and of handing over their passports to the employer until visa and arrival costs were repaid.
Some workers even have to provide their own picking buckets.
NSW’s antislavery commissioner, James Cockayne, says worker exploitation is widespread in many kinds of fruit-picking, but the blueberry industry appears to be worse than most.
A Fair Work Ombudsman report in June graded the Coffs Harbour region as at “very high risk of breaching labour laws”, with 61% non compliance uncovered in recent inspections. (It’s not the worst region – Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and Yarra valley recorded 83%.)
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Cockayne, a human rights lawyer, cites several factors that are typical of the blueberry industry.
“The barriers to entry are low, farms are smaller and labour hire companies are now a significant feature of the industry,” he says.
Cockayne says he is particularly worried that NSW, unlike Queensland, does not licence labour hire companies.
“It’s semi-organised crime, that is how I would describe it. There are networks of dodgy operators often working in tandem with dodgy accommodation providers, recruiters and migration agents,” he says.
“They are taking advantage of the extremely weak regulation in NSW and within the visa programs.”
Under Australian law, if workers are paid a piece rate, they must be receive at least the minimum wage equivalent of $24.95 an hour or $948.00 a week before tax, with a 25% loading for casual work to compensate for entitlements, such as holidays, taking the hourly rate to $31.19.
James and Janis say they were often being paid $15 an hour to pick.
The two Solomon Islanders had no payslips (which, in itself, is illegal) so it was not possible to verify their pay.
Instead, they say, they photographed the buckets they had filled as the farmer weighed them to keep track of what they were owed. The notification of their pay – indeed, all contact with the labour hire firm that employs them – is via WhatsApp.
Other workers have happier stories. One worker from Timor-Leste, who declined to give his name, said he and his friend had earned $4,000 in a week because they were very fast pickers. He had bought a car, which he hoped to take back to Timor at the end of his stay.
Vulnerable workers
James and Janis are part of an army of seasonal fruit pickers who come to Australia on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (Palm) scheme.
Young people on working holiday visas are another large source of workers. They must work 88 days in a regional area to qualify for a second or third year on their visa.
The Guardian has previously reported on their vulnerability to exploitation.
Palm visa holders are meant to be contracted to companies registered in the scheme. But when that relationship breaks down or work dries up it can be dire for the workers.
Cockayne and others say a common story is that workers get into debt to farmers for accommodation and other costs while waiting for work. In desperation, they leave in search of more picking work, without completing the paperwork to change employers.
The government refers to these people as “absconders”, but Cockayne uses the term “disengaged” because often the worker has had little say about what happens to their sponsor.
James and Janis, who were sponsored by a labour hire company, were made redundant after the farmer said he needed only 25 of the 75 workers. They left in search of other picking work.
“Once workers are disengaged they are incredibly vulnerable,” Cockayne says.
They cannot access Medicare and may be offered even worse wages and conditions by labour hire companies.
Despite the hardships, Janis and James say they will stick it out for another year or two before returning to the Solomon Islands.
This kind of work is a means to get ahead, even though the wages are below the Australian standard. Both workers plan to build their own houses in Honiara so they don’t have to live with their parents.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery is currently investigating worker conditions. The independent chair, Joe McGirr, says the Palm scheme is important to both Pacific island nations and the Australian agricultural industry, but he has concerns about labour hire firms.
The chief executive of Berries Australia, Rachel Mackenzie, acknowledged that issues persisted with labour law compliance in the industry, particuarly with labour hire.
“We have been on the record for years advocating for a national, or failing that, a robust NSW labour hire licensing scheme,” Mackenzie said. “This is the most effective way to eliminate unscrupulous operators – it’s a simple fix that has proven hugely successful in Queensland.”
‘They don’t want to give up’
Biba Honnet, the manager of North Coast Settlement Services, helps settle new migrants, and gets called when someone needs immediate assistance, quite often a disengaged worker.
She says they might need food or accommodation or are in an unsafe situation. Sexual harassment and assault are common.
“The Pacific cohort are highly vulnerable,” she says. “Palm is billed as an aid program but I have heard from enough workers [to know] that it is not working in their favour.
“The recruitment practices are deceptive and [workers] are not in full possession of the facts.”
She says they are lulled into a false sense of what working in Australia can do for them, with videos showing returned workers who have earned enough money to start their own businesses.
She says her experience with workers suggests a different reality.
“‘Basic facilities’ would be a huge overstatement,” she says.
“We are talking accommodation with tin or canvas walls, dirt floors, [housing] 15 to 20 people and [having] one kitchen.”
Honnet says disengaged workers are moved through a serious of interlocking farm agreements, and with each move conditions seem to deteriorate.
“They come here and they are so hopeful and they don’t want to give up, until they are in absolute despair,” she says.
* Names have been changed
