WITH an uptick in the mining industry, ag labour issues are starting to become a topic again.
Torque is lending an ear to industry concerns – machinery dealers, town businesses and farmers, all of whom have voiced issues of either retaining staff or attracting people who want to work.
Nobody has a defined answer to this multi-faceted problem, but there is one common understanding – money.
That’s the honey pot which is the mining industry.
But as one machinery dealer told Torque this week, how many people attracted to the mines can calculate their net-after-tax income.
“Although their income will still be greater their sacrifices are far greater,” he said.
It would be unrealistic to expect staff to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week for two or more weeks straight, because you can’t compare ag to mining with such a schedule.
But it would be interesting to see how many people with country jobs would readily take up a different lifestyle as a so-called FIFO worker if their weekly wages were increased by $20 an hour.
Which begs the question: Why can’t ag become a honey pot?
The short answer is because the industry is so uncoordinated.
A mining protest gets government attention.
Activists get government attention.
Ag? Yeah, no.
Ironically politicians have a big picture of the industry, often citing it, incorrectly, as the food bowl of Asia.
They get the need for food.
They don’t get the processes that enable them to sit down for meals every day.
If they did we probably wouldn’t be talking about a skilled labour shortage in ag or the attractions of the mining honey pot.
To some “full-glassers”, ag already is a honey pot – great lifestyle, people, industry.
Unfortunately you can’t get away from the wish for “great wages”.
If we take politicians at their word, that Australian agriculture is of profound importance to the nation’s economy, then it follows they should adopt the same financial attitude they do to the mining industry and provide tax breaks and tax incentives to the ag industry.
For many businesses Torque has spoken with, including several large farm operations, abolishing payroll tax would be a good start to reducing the “cost monkey” on the back of ag.
Another viewpoint is for ag to be on the same playing field as mining with incentives such as location allowances to encourage people to move into regional WA.
The point is that governments would gain a return on investment, eliminating the hand-out mentality that still lingers, particularly with metropolitan people, who perceive that ag always has its proverbial hand out.
Those people and politicians, would do well to remember that while agriculture, per se, only contributes about three per cent to the nation’s GDP, agribusiness, which includes service industries, food manufacturers, food processors, food wholesalers and retailers etc, accounts for significantly more and employs more than 1.6 million people, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science (ABARES).
Mining’s contribution to GDP is about eight per cent while employing a little over 300,000 people.
Is the tail wagging the dog here?
We’ve heard ad nauseum, from politicians, about the need for regional development.
Well, put agriculture on the same platform as mining.
Give it dignity and respect and watch the ag industry Make Australia Great Again, to paraphrase Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, et al.