Australia Aborigines want jobs promised to Pacific

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Small Pacific nations and East Timor are jostling for inclusion in an Australian plan to ship in seasonal workers from overseas, but Aborigines said on Tuesday that local indigenous people should get preference.

East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao will next week visit Canberra to ask his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd for inclusion in a scheme to import workers from Tonga, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu to harvest fruit and vegetables.

But Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine said indigenous people, who have far higher jobless rates than other Australians, should have first access to the scheme, designed to help cover chronic labor shortages in Australia's hot economy.

"This is not rocket science," Mundine told local radio. "We need to help the Pacific Islander communities with their economies, but at the same time we also need to deal with vast unemployment in Aboriginal communities."

Australia's government this week said it would introduce a pilot scheme for up to 2,500 seasonal Pacific island workers to stay in the country for up to seven months at a time to help harvest crops.

Australian farmers say they have about 22,000 seasonal agriculture jobs they can't fill, with unemployment at 32-year lows after 16 years of economic expansion.

Mundine said the scheme would help tackle unemployment problems in remote Aboriginal communities, which have far higher rates of alcohol and sexual abuse as well as poor access to schools and education.

DISCRIMINATION

Past welfare policies and racial discrimination had discouraged indigenous people from moving to take up seasonal jobs, he said.

"You've (not) just got to look at the industry itself about being welcoming to indigenous people, but also look at the policies over the past 30 years, which have deterred and impeded Aboriginal people from taking up those jobs," Mundine said.

Rudd is expected to expand the scheme to East Timor, Asia's poorest country, bringing Timorese to fill mining and hospitality industry jobs in Australia's west, home to the country's Asia-led resource export boom and where workers are also in short supply.

The conservative opposition, which holds the largest block of seats in Australia's Upper House Senate, has refused to back the scheme, meaning Rudd's centre-left government will need support from a diverse group of green and independent senators.

"What measures will there be to guard against people overstaying? What character checks? Health Checks?" said conservative lawmaker Chris Ellison, who backed tight immigration controls before his government was ousted by Rudd last year.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said more countries could be included in the scheme after an 18-month review and several had already asked for involvement.

Smith did not say which, but they are likely to include the Solomon Islands and tiny Nauru, as well as Fiji, which has been excluded because its military government has refused to commit to a promised 2009 deadline for democratic elections.