“Estimated thousands of migrant workers trapped in Australian farm slavery”

A backpacker hoping for a memorable working holiday on an Australian farm finds himself crammed into a house with 17 people, eating dry bread and deprived of sunshine and fresh air.

After arriving on a visa from China, the young man had headed to a small town on the NSW coast in 2024 to pick blueberries and was immediately slapped with a rental debt…

“No one’s daily life should be constantly monitored by someone with more resources and power,” he wrote in a submission to a NSW parliamentary inquiry examining modern rural slavery risks.

The migrant workers harvested up to 30 buckets of berries each day at $4.50 per load but despite sometimes toiling for 17 days straight, were regularly told they weren’t doing enough…

While many Australians assume the days of slavery are long gone, the NSW inquiry has revealed migrant workers in industries like agriculture, horticulture and meat processing are highly vulnerable to exploitation…

More than 16,000 are trapped in modern slavery in NSW, one of the few states that does not regulate the hire companies central to recruitment…

The federal government’s Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, which employs people from nine Pacific islands and Timor-Leste, has been heavily scrutinised at the inquiry…