Surviving in the dairy industry with low milk prices was hard enough but the changes to the skilled migrant workers visa scheme was a kick in the guts the Kydds of Finley didn’t expect.
Ruth Kydd was preparing on a Tuesday morning to submit her latest application for a 457 visa worker in time for the calving season in July on the Riverina property.
Later that day (March 18), the Federal Government axed the 457 visa scheme and Mrs Kydd was devastated.
The old scheme, that allowed workers to stay for four years, was to be replaced by a new two-tier system with shorter visa periods and stricter entry requirements including police checks and English tests. Mrs Kydd said she felt she was paying the cost for other industries rorting the 457 visa system.
The Kydds run 1200 crossbred dairy cows - a mixture of Holstein, Jersey and Ayrshire breeds - on the 1192ha property incorporating “Myrtle Park” and “Avonmore”, 20kms from the Murray River at Finley in the Riverina.
The dairy cows do well here, the crossbreeds have good fertility, toughness and graze well. There are about 30 large dairy farms surrounding Finley, most of them on contracts to Murray-Goulburn, and nearly all of them employ skilled overseas workers.
Mrs Kydd estimates that would make up about at least 100 employees in the area from overseas who help keep the local economy afloat.
She started bringing in overseas workers on various types of visas about five years ago. She applauds their work ethic.
The Kydds have had workers from South Korea, Ukraine, Philippines and Holland. They live on site and shop in Finley, play squash and shop and socialise in the town.Their only gripe is there is no soccer team in Finley in this traditional AFL region.
Mrs Kydd, who works “Avonmore” with her husband Neville and their two sons, says many local people don’t want the jobs on offer at Finley’s dairies. “They prefer to drive tractors than work with cows,” she says. Many of her overseas workers work a 48 hour week.
Many have agricultural degrees or diplomas. Herd manager Dohyun Kim, from Korea is on a 457 skilled worker visa working at the Kydds' Myrtle Farm. He came to Australia on a student visa and then completed a diploma in agriculture. His English is "pretty good".
Mrs Kydd finds her overseas workers through “word of mouth” mostly. She also uses an immigration agent in Melbourne to find workers on training visas. She pays up to $10,000 to bring in a worker. Early estimates are this cost may double under new entry requirements, that inlude police checks and English tests.
What this visa change is doing is hindering us from trying to to help the Australian economy.
- Ruth Kydd, Finley dairyfarmer
Dairy has not been included in the four-year visa system, which has upset her. She also thinks the English requirements for dairy workers are ridiculous.
“They are required to have level six international English skills and that includes reading, writing, comprehension and speech. Currently they only have to meet a 4 or 5 level of the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) test.” Mrs Kydd can’t understand the emphasis on English in an industry based on hard agricultural work.
She’s very disappointed with the axieing of the 457 scheme, which will be replaced by the new system in March next year.
“The dairy industry is cyclical and we are paddling very hard to stay afloat,” Mrs Kydd said.
“These changes mean we can’t have confidence of having a worker for four years now. It is hard to get good people to work with you and to help make the business profitable. We don’t want to be in a situation where we have to change staff all the time. There is also a huge flown on effect in town. Finley would be a pretty empty place if you took out all the foreign workers.”
The Kydds moved from Gippsland in Victoria to Finley in the 1980s and have seen the dairy industry grow and grow. Most dairies now have large herds and need a certain number of workers to make the operations viable.
“What this visa change is doing is hindering us from trying to to help the Australian economy,” Ruth Kydd says. ”It doesn’t make sense to me at all. It’s like a lot of people and dairyfarmers are being hurt for something a few people in other unrelated industries may have done wrong.”