Australian Migration News

Sugar industry applies for more foreign workers

The sugar industry wants better access to overseas labour.

The Canegrowers Organisation will today finalise a submission to the Department of Immigration calling for workers - who can enter Australia under 457 Visas - to be given the opportunity to fill the hundreds of haulout jobs left vacant each season.

Canegrowers deputy chief executive, Ron Mullins, says those working on temporary visas need to be given an exemption to allow them to drive heavy machinery on public roads.

"The industry has to move 35 million tonnes of cane each year," he says.

"We are currently losing a lot of our haulage operators to the mining sector, and this deficit, which we estimate to be 550 operators a year, can't be met here domestically."

Meanwhile, Canegrowers has blamed the falling price of sugar on international conditions, saying they make commodity trading uncertain.

Chairman Ian Ballantyne says the falls in the financial markets have been mirrored in the sugar markets.

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