Fruit pickers under Palm return home

TEN women from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville recruitment hub working in Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (Palm) Scheme are back home after eight months.
They were working at Hillwood Berries, a farm located on the north coast of Tasmania, about 30km inland from Launceston.
Team leader Shirley Philips, from Kokopau village, said they had to adjust cold Tasmanian weather
“The first time we arrived in Tasmania, it was really very cold,” Shirley said.
Shirley and her group worked in the agronomy team where they were taught how to look after the young plants (strawberries, blue berries, blackberries).
“We were taken through a one-week training on fruit-picking and that has helped us to understand how to do our work more efficiently,” Shirley said.
Then they worked in a vineyard picking grapes.
They were paid according to how much fruit was picked.
“Each person had to fill up 50 bins a day,” Shirley said.
Shirley said the work was tough.
“We were the only women working on the vineyard.
“We were working alongside men and it was hard work.
“It would typically require a strength of a man to get this job done but we did it.
“We would carry two buckets each and run to one row of grapevines to another to fill the buckets up.”
Charmaine Buka from Buka town said “our hard work and demonstration of strength impressed our employer that they gave lots of encouragement and positive feedback for our efforts”.