A NATIONAL accreditation program for labour-hire contractors is one of the recommendations from a recent seasonal workers summit.
The summit was held to discuss the reluctance of Victorian fruit growers to sign on for the Pacific Island Seasonal Workers pilot scheme.
During last season's pre-pilot scheme, 56 workers came from Tonga and Vanuatu, but there have been no requests from growers for workers this season.
Concerned by lack of interest in the scheme, Swan Hill Rural City Council held a forum with local growers and representatives of several federal government departments to find out why growers were not taking part.
Mayor Greg Cruickshank said the main issues identified were cost, lack of training, and the lack of flexibility in where the workers could be employed.
"The discussion was pretty full and frank and the government representatives cleared up some misconceptions," Cr Cruickshank said.
"They are the most expensive alternative for labour and DEEWR (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations) was quite open about that."
Cr Cruickshank said the scheme was never intended to provide cheaper alternative labour that might cost Australian workers their jobs.
"It was meant to be a solution for farmers who couldn't find labour," he said.
"It was meant to protect local jobs as well as ... foster economic development in the Pacific Island nations."
Cr Cruickshank said islander workers were paid at the same rate as locals, but growers faced added costs such as paying half their return airfares, private health insurance, a fee to the labour hire company "and a number of other benefits that are not provided to normal workers".
"The other issue is they largely came out here untrained. Some of them had never seen a peach or a plum before," he said.
"So if you're taking somebody on who at the end of the day you're paying a lot more money for, and then having to train them before you get to use them, then you're not getting good value for money."
Cr Cruickshank said discussion of the problem of illegal foreign workers and unscrupulous contractors resulted in agreement on the need for a nationwide accreditation program for labour hire contractors.
The program could be based on one operating in New Zealand, he said.
