The workers will spend hours toiling in the hot sun thousands of kilometres from family, but the opportunity to earn nine times what is possible at home is too good to miss, and there are already more people waiting for the next flight to Australia.
Lucy Felix was working in her garden in Eton village, Vanuatu, when she got an unexpected call about an opportunity on a Northern Territory farm.Vanuatu is one of the few countries that have no confirmed cases of coronavirusThe single mother had been selected by Vanuatu's Labour Department to harvest mangoes in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Vanuatu has laid off many people in their permanent jobs, so there [are] no jobs for everyone to pay for their families," Ms Felix said. But the decision was not easy, and Ms Felix said she really misses her 13-year-old daughter, who is being looked after by her grandmother. After spending 14 days in hotel quarantine, last week Ms Felix and the other Ni-Vanuatu men and women started work on the farms in rural NT.Other workers in the packhouse fill hundreds of trays with the fruit, ready to be shipped to supermarkets around Australia.
"We're happy to come, but we're scared also," said Royson Watas, a worker from Vanuatu's northern island of Santo.Mr Watas's boss said the workers from Vanuatu were easy to get along with. Other states are also considering creating similar programs, to allow workers from Pacific countries with no confirmed cases of coronavirus to work on Australian farms.Fruit Growers Tasmania has said it was watching the outcomes of the Northern Territory trial"That's really, really good news for us in Vanuatu and people who earn a low income," Mr Watas said.
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