Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited the company to respond to claims of underpayment of workers and dangerous working conditions.

The company responded:

"Comments attributed to Agri Labour Australia Managing Director Casey Brown

• We are vigorously defending ourselves in the Fair Work Commission investigation. We welcome this investigation and we deny that our business has done anything unlawful.
• We will continue to assist the Fair Work Ombudsman with its investigation.
• We are investigating all the claims made in the media, although in some cases we have been given no details or evidence of the claims – despite repeated requests.
• Agri Labour Australia was engaged by MCG Fresh Produce, near Shepparton, in November 2017, to provide 50 farm labourers under the Federal Seasonal Worker Program. Nine of these workers were returning to the farm, having worked there last season. They were from Vanuatu.
• Given the reputation of the Shepparton area as a hotspot for unscrupulous workforce management, Agri Labour Australia contacted the Federal Government’s Seasonal Worker Program to check the bona fides of the employer. We received no adverse feedback about the employer, although we have since learned we are the fourth supplier of labour to this farm in four years.
• The pay and conditions of the workforce were under piecework agreements, where payment is determined by the worker’s productivity. We are confident that the investigation will find that the business set piecework rates that an average competent person could achieve and that complied with the law. We also note that the piece rates were set and approved under the correct procedures of the seasonal worker program.
• Early in the engagement, Agri Labour Australia discovered that the supervision on site was not what was anticipated and therefore this did not help workers achieve their picking targets. So we paid for one of our senior management staff to go on site and help the workers achieve their productivity targets, in order to maximise their pay.
• On the basis of feedback that the manager provided about the farm, one of the Directors of Agri Labour Australia personally visited the site to speak with workers. We then funded an additional two supervisors from within the group of workers.
• These measures resulted in an increase in attendance and productivity on the part of the workers, which in turn boosted their remuneration. We also topped up the pay packets of the seasonal workers from our proceeds of the engagement.
• Ideally, we would have removed the workers from the farm and placed them elsewhere as soon as the issues around low piece rates were presented, but it was difficult to find new positions for 50 people, particularly when they have travelled to Australia as a group and wanted to stay together. Fortunately, we were able to move them to another farm.
• We have reviewed our own client vetting procedures as a result of this contract, and we can say that the farm would not pass our new client assessment process in our opinion."