July 7, 2023 • 40 mins
When Irish backpacker Laura left her farmwork after a month of sexual harassment in 2018, she believed it was the end of her nightmare. However, years later she would discover that she was not the only one.
This podcast tells the story of how three backpackers experienced inappropriate behaviour at the hands of the same farmer while working towards extending their stay in Australia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:17):
So the labor migration system in Australia is fundamentally broken,
and I know that's a big call.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
At the Australian Government's Skills and Jobs Summit in twenty
twenty two, Associate Professor Joanna Howell called out Australia's migration
system for being ripe with exploitation.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But at the.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Same time as shortage is a endemic, we have an
entrenched systemic problem with migrant worker exploitation.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I was the.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Naive person to think I'd go out to a farm
and do legitimate work and not get looked at, not
get touched, not get harassed.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
To be honest, it's retail job.
Speaker 7 (01:00):
We are human and we don't deserve to be treated.
Speaker 8 (01:02):
Like like this.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Our current basis system is one that invites exploitation for
farm work and it's something that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
For a long time now, in the horticulture industry has
been reliant upon working holiday makers or backpackers for this
seasonal harvest labor supply.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You're listening to seven New Spectrum with me Malin Heglund
and this is the dark side of Australia's migration system.
This episode contains personal stories of sexual harassment for legal reasons.
Some names in this podcast have been changed. Actually, in
(01:48):
winter twenty seventeen, graphic designer Laura takes a break from work.
After seven years of dreaming, she is finally heading to Australia.
Speaker 8 (02:01):
I'm just saying closed.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
So I think I had always dreamt of coming to Australia.
I think it had been on my mind for about
seven years. A lot of my friends seem to be
doing the same thing, heading out to Australia for the
one year working holiday and never coming back. Because I
had a bit of the typical wanderlust, I was sort
of like, right, I really want to see what all
(02:27):
the fusses about.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That year, Laura will join over two hundred thousands of
backpackers entering Australia on a working holiday visa. Like many others,
she'll aim for a second year visa by completing eighty
eight days of regional farm work.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
So I did a little bit of traveling and met
a couple of friends, did Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Speaker 8 (02:54):
And during that time I put an.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Advert up on gum Tree of myself just saying hey,
I'm Laura, I'm from Ireland. I'm in Australia for a year,
and I'm looking to do farm work that's going to
count towards my idiot days to access my second year
working things.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Within a few days, Laura receives a response from a
man referred to in this episode as Deed. He owns
a cattle farm in regional New South Wales with cows, sheep, dogs,
and horses that he says that she can ride. Having
ridden horses in her youth, Laura thinks this sounds like
(03:33):
a great opportunity.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Even said you know all or just you know, whatever
you end up doing, just make sure that you're very
careful about where you go. There's a lot of strange
people out there in Australia that would be willing to
take advantage of young people such as yourself. So I
think even him saying that sort of actually gives me
the comfort to go.
Speaker 8 (03:56):
Oh, you're actually a pretty good egg. You're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Laura feels nervous about meeting Steve, especially since he's much
older and a stranger. When they meet at the train station,
everything seems fine. He talks a lot about himself and
she's too tired from the traveling to mind, but soon
into the drive she starts to notice some odd comments.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
You mentioned that he had had a previous blackpacker at
his property. But she only stayed for I think it
was two days, he said. And I didn't really ask
any questions because he seemed.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
To do a lot of talking. Said, oh, some sweedish girls.
She didn't say very long. Doesn't she like the dog?
She just took off.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
No, I didn't touch her. I didn't touch her. It
just made me go, oh, well, maybe he did. So
he brought me on to the farm anywhere and showed
me a rhyme.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The house, though it's tied, feels stuck in the seventies,
with unfinished walls and a carpet. Laura's room is set
up in the same house as Steve and his wife,
looks like a mix of a sunroom and a child's bedroom.
A teddy bear sits on the night stand, and there's
a sink and a plastic bucket by the closet. It
(05:20):
doesn't take long for her to realize why she hasn't
been shown the bathroom.
Speaker 8 (05:25):
I started to go, where's the toilet?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
To my heart, then he presented me with this clear
plastic bucket, the sort that you would get a kilogram
of Harry blow in, and he told me not to
go outside at nighttime, for they left the dog's ee
and the dogs aren't socialized, and also snakes and other
Australian things that are trying to kill you. So he
suggested that I a year in it into this bucket
(05:53):
overnight and then I empty at out in.
Speaker 8 (05:56):
The utility room the next morning.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The first evening, she just focused on getting familiar with
the place and unpacked her things. She also got to
meet Steve's wife over dinner, and she seemed nice.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
He's very very lovely, doesn't say a lot, you know.
Speaker 8 (06:16):
We had sort of very surface level chat and but
she made me feel really welcome.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
And you asked me all about when you come from,
what you're doing here, and sort of felt like.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
What am I doing here? I'm not sure yet.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Work started early the next morning, though not early enough
for Laura to see Steve's wife preparing breakfast before leaving
for work. Steve, clearly curious about Laura, wasted no time
asking her questions.
Speaker 8 (06:51):
He just started almost interrogating me.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
He wanted to know absolutely everything you know from when
I was born, where I was born, whom.
Speaker 8 (07:00):
My parents are do my parents know where I am?
Do I know what my parents are leaving me in
their will?
Speaker 5 (07:08):
He was very interested to know all about my boyfriend
back in Ireland. He wanted to know how long we'd
been together, if we were sexually active with one another.
He wanted to know if I'd ever cheated on him
or anybody.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
The conversation felt so strange that Laura couldn't take it seriously,
so she tried to laugh it off. As she reassured
herself that Steve was just an eccentric farmer, she grew
increasingly concerned about what he might be capable of. On
Day three, Steve made his first move, laying his hands
(07:47):
on her.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
He came into my bedroom one morning, well I was
still I think I was just waking up, and he
sat on the end of the bed and he put
his hand up the bottom of the sheets and grabbed
my feet and started tickling my fate and he's, oh,
tickler shu wee thing, harn't you Well I very quickly
sort of said, sorry, this is not appropriate.
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Can you please leave?
Speaker 5 (08:15):
And he sort of scoffed and rolled his eyes stormed
out of the room.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
By this point, Laura was unsure of what to do.
She had noticed his behavior was unpredictable and his mood unstable.
Some days he was dressed about the drought, while other
days he was angry about the struggle to feed his cattle.
By the end of week one. This made it hard
for her to ask for her.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Pay, stranded in a sense, you know, because I didn't
have much money to.
Speaker 8 (08:50):
My name at the time.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
You know, a lot of people don't when they first
come to Australia. And I have a horrible feeling, and
he sort of knew that maybe who knows, but the
way the panda wouldn't really surprise me.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
A twenty eighteen Fair Work Ombutzmann investigation found that thirty
percent of employers in the agricultural sector with held wages,
and nearly half of the non compliant businesses were still
operating when revisited. This issue is partly due to migrants
being unaware of their rights or too afraid to speak up,
(09:27):
but another part of the problem is also the fact
that some parts of the agricultural industry had been played
by a labor shortage for decades and had been given
backpackers as a band aid solution. Richard Channon Executive officer
of the National Farmers' Federations Horticultural Council, attributes the shortage
(09:47):
to location, low wages and tough seasonal work.
Speaker 9 (09:51):
I wouldn't say the system has failed, it's just that
far from perfect at the moment. For a long time,
the the horticulture industry has been reliant upon working holiday
makers or backpackers for this seasonal harvest labor supply. Before COVID,
backpackers made up to eighty percent of our seasonal workforce,
(10:13):
which is a significant number. And our view for a
long time has been that we can do better than that.
We can design for a better system that isn't overly
reliant on one particular source of workers, that provides our
industries with more secure, reliable and productive workers.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So the labor migration system in Australia is fundamentally broken
and I know that's a big call.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
At the twenty twenty two Jobs and Skills Summits, Adelaide University,
Associate Professor Joanna Howe addressed Parliament. She was chosen by
Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil, along with two others, to
help reform Australia's migration system, having previously researched the experiences
of temporary migrant women facing sexual harassment on Australian farms.
(11:10):
How saw this as an opportunity to highlight the issue.
Her team's research revealed that the farm work requirement was
a major factor behind working holiday makers vulnerability to sexual harassment.
Speaker 8 (11:25):
We got it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
They were willing to put up with all sorts of
exploitative conditions in order to get a second year on
their visa. So I think the way that we designed
these resources can invite exploitation or it can prevent an
limited exploitation. And our current visa system is one that
invites exploitation for farm work, and it's something that needs
to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
More than two weeks after Laura arrived on the farm,
a few strange things have happened. As Laura became more confident,
Steve showed her his record backpackers, bragging about how lucky
she was to have been chosen.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
So he stormed off into his study and he brings
back out this little black, leather, palm sized black book
and starts to open it and shows me all of
these names and tells me, I find all of these
girls off country and there right enough. There was lists
(12:25):
I do not know. I think maybe eighty ninety one
hundred names.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
This week, Laura was also bitten by one of these
dogs while riding the quad bike with him.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
I got off the quad and I started crying because
it was quite a painful bite, and he immediately goes
from my jeans and starts to pull them down. I'm
fighting him, going what on earth are you doing? And
he's like, I need to see need to see the bite.
I need to see if the skin's broken, because if
it's broken, you'll need to go to hospital.
Speaker 8 (13:04):
To get a tetanus.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
And I was like, thank you, but I can look
for myself, while still fighting with him to hold my
trousers up, and eventually he overforced me and was able
to pull down my trousers and my underwear came with them.
So I stood there, absolutely humiliated, while he started grabbing
my rear to look at said dog bite.
Speaker 8 (13:28):
And then just said, oh, forgiveness sinks, It's just a scratch.
You're fine.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
By this point, Laura had begun recording what was happening
on the farm to share with her boyfriend in Ireland.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
To excuse the saying, may I've been in the cattle
yard all day.
Speaker 8 (13:46):
But yeah, I kind of want to talk to about
some stuff. I just don't know if I'm gonna be
staying here.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
However, due to the poor signal on the farm, she
could only say the recordings on her phone to send later.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
But anyway, can't make this too long because I'm spend
just he keeps asking really weird questions, and today he
actually nearly had me in tears because he just started
going on and on about us. There's so much other
stuff on it and stuff I'm actually scared to put
in an email as well, because it's his desktop computer.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
As time went on and my days turned into weeks,
you know, I just I think I was just putting
up with it.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
I was definitely aware that it.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Wasn't right and there was something very wrong and strange
about his behavior, but I hadn't got to this stage
yet where I was contemplating phoning the police. I think
at one stage I phoned a taxi company and give
them the address to see if they knew where it was,
because it wasn't ready to phone the police because what
(14:47):
could I say.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
This guy's saying weird things to me, He's touching my feet.
They would have told me to wise up, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Associate Professor Howell explains that many migrant women see sexual
harassment as part of the farm work experience. She has
found that while many are aware of their mistreatment to
avoid worrying their loved ones, some are also hesitant to
contact authorities for fear of being forced to leave the country.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Frame of references, if it's not sexual assault, then I
should just put up with it, even though in our
law those type of behaviors on the spectrum would be
caused sexual harassment. And what I think you'd find is
Australian women would say I'm not going to put up
with that, But temporary migrant women had different leavers and pressures,
and so often they were put up with a spectrum
(15:45):
of harassment that might not amount to assault, but is
still quite serious.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Just over three weeks later, Laura learns that Steve has
planned it to Queensland. He tells her he needs to
pick up a horse and invites her to join him
for horse riding lessons.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
He tells me, right, we're going to go up to
Queensland to pick up a horse from a.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Couple that I know and that i've broken in horses
of his in the past, and I said, where are
we going? I looked on Google Maps.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
It's fourteen hours away in the car and he said, right,
you're going to be coming with me, and we're going
to spend the night up there, and you're gonna get
some horse riding lessons from this lady.
Speaker 8 (16:33):
He's very very good at riding. And I said, write, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Steve told his wife the plan over dinner. They would
spend the night at the house of the couple who
trained the horse, and then return the next day. But
as Laura sat in the car heading to Queensland, she
would soon learn Steve had lied to both her and
his wife. This would be Laura's last time working for Steve.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
I'd fallen asleep on the side of the door and
the front of you is youth, and when I woke up,
his hand was sort of in between my back and
my breast, sort of on this bit underneath my armpit,
and with this sort of fingers touching the side of
my breast, and I sort of got off and realized
(17:22):
where he was touching me, and wasn't sure how long
that had been happening for. And it was very very awkward,
and then I was like going, oh, no, Like what's
this trip really about? You know, what's going to happen here?
Like the tone that's being set is just not good.
And I instantly regretted not having brought my passports with
(17:45):
me and also my laptop before we got there. He
tells me, no, we're not staying there, We're staying in hotel,
and then I was like, I really hope it's separate rooms.
And during the car journey after that, he went completely
silent for about two hours.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Shortly after arriving at the horse farm, Laura and Steve separate.
Laura is taken aside by the woman for her horse
riding lesson, while Steve goes to the man to check
on the horse. They begin with some footwork and pressure
points before taking the horses out for a walk along
a quiet country road.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
And so the pair of us go out and she
turns to me and says, Laura, I just I want
to let you know that he's not a friend of ours.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
We've only dealt with him a couple of times.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
That being said, I just want to ask you if
everything is okay.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
I just broke I just broke down, and I said.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I've got myself into a weird situation and I don't
know how to get out. I could see the horror
on her face, and she said, no, no, no, this isn't right.
Speaker 8 (19:02):
We need to get you out of there.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You know, I sort of felt a bit embarrassed telling her,
because again, if you can say, oh, well, he's ripped
me or he's tried to have sex made, doesn't really
ever sign that bad.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
After Laura explained that she had left her travel documents
and laptop behind, she and the woman exchanged numbers. The woman,
knowing which motel Steve had booked for the night, was
also reassured that they would be returning the next morning.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
We rock up with the motel.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Laura asks for the room keys while Steve parks, but
when she gives the woman at the counter Steve's last name,
she is shocked to find only one double bedroom is booked.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
And I just looked out the windowed him parking up,
and I looked back at her and I said, I
have no time to explain, but if can you change it,
can you please get us two rooms or do something.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
I can not be in the same room as this man.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
There's my boss, as soon as I said that, she
went okay, and she had a quick look and she said, well,
there is like a duplex apartment room and it has
two bedrooms and there's locks on the doors, and sort
of made this eye contact.
Speaker 8 (20:17):
With me as if to say, I sense.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
That there's not something not quite right here, and I'm
gonna let you know there's locks on the bedroom doors
just in case you need them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The duplex was small but simple, with a shared living
room and kitchen separated by an island. Steve, who hasn't
mentioned anything about upgrading the room, settles onto the couch
while Laura stands behind the island, and.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
He patiently he said, come here and sit beside me
and give me a kiss. That's why I just said no, like,
I'm not coming to slip beside you like, and then
starts getting angry at me for being naive, you know,
saying well, what did you expect, you know, when you
(21:05):
come to Australia, when you come to work on a farm,
do you not expect that people are gonna look at you,
touch you, make advances at you, you know? And I said, yes,
that's exactly what I expect, and he seemed horrified at
me for not wanting to engage in touching each other
(21:28):
and kissing, and I was just I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
And he got very, very flustered when.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
I said, you know, no, like you absolutely cannot touch me.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
That's not okay. I got called an ugly bitch and
I was like, right, I've had enough. Good night. And
he started to follow me and started to grab me,
and I was like no, no, no.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
So I got into the bedroom and I slammed the
door and locked it and he started banging on the
door and said, oh, come on, Laura, come on.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
Come on, I come on. And I didn't say a word.
I just went side and he's like, what do you
think I'm going to do? Try and radio?
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Well, I just might, and then heard him stumble off.
We had a few beers. So I went to bed
that night with that ringing in my ears and that's on.
Speaker 7 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (22:19):
I was like, this is this is it? That's it,
and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Laura returned to the Forum with Steve and was eventually
paid by his wife before leaving for good. It wasn't
until she was back at the train station waiting to
return to Sydney, as she called her mom and shared
everything for the first time.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I never let her into I'm not in an okay situation.
That's when I think it all sort of just hit
me like a ton of bricks and I was like
that that was a close ship.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Laura eventually returned to the Queensland couple's house, where they
helped her finally report with the police.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
All I wanted was for no other girl to go
near that farm in Kiss. The way his behavior was
escalating continued to escalate while they were there. And then
what's sad is that years later I find out that
still it continued.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
To her surprise, A few weeks later, someone higher up
in the force call to express concern about her case.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
He said, historically, this is how they begin. That's what
he said. Take that from that what you will.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
For this podcast, Laura has shared a copy of her
police report. She later heard of more stories from female backpackers,
some similar to hers, while others involved women being offered
more money in exchange for performing oral sex for their employers.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Sometimes feel really bad, you know, these stories have given
some very good farms a bad name, but.
Speaker 8 (24:07):
It does seem to be quite a common thing. I
police it. I just I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Like mister Shannon, a member of an organization representing farmers,
believes that while it's important to call out poor behavior
among farmers, a regulated labor hiring system could make a
significant difference industry calling out poor behavior and not accepting,
(24:36):
you know, neighbors and growers in their in their communities
doing the wrong thing, and referring them wherever they can
to authorities.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Authorities doing a better job of following up those referrals
and the and the notifications that have been sent by
industry and by by workers, and making sure that people
are penalized and taken through the courts where necessary, and
also that that licensing of labor higher. I think those
three things together would go a long way to solving
these issues.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
In twenty nineteen, one year after Laura's time at Steve's farm,
the Australian government introduced a third working holiday visa. This
came despite media reports exposing the ongoing financial and sexual
abuse of backpackers on farms, and the Fair Work Ombootman
acknowledging their vulnerability to exploitation due to low awareness of
(25:27):
workplace rights and limited access to help.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think this is really in response to pressure from industry,
saying that they've got labor shortages and they need overseas
workers to work on farms. But the problem is it's
just exacerbating the issues from that first year.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
In January twenty twenty one, French backpacker Chloe had been
in Australia for just over a year, with two months
having passed since she left Steve's farm. However, unlike Chloe
left after just twenty eight hours.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
I really felt anxious, like I felt like something my
room would happen.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Chloe, who decided to leave after hearing noises outside of
her window at night, didn't feel the need to report Steve,
as he had only acted strangely. However, two months later,
she was shocked to see a post about him on Facebook.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
I was in Barron Bay and I I was on Facebook,
and I saw a message, a message from a French
girl and who said that there was sort of something
really strange about this farm. And then I realized it
might be the same farm.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
So I asked the name.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
Of the farm, and I realized that there was something
very wrong about this farm.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Selene, whose real name is something Else, has just arrived
at Dave's farm. Like the others she was contacted on Gumtry,
promised horse riding lessons and warned about the dangers of
traveling alone.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
I arrived to his house and there's like his wife,
and the house is really old. I've got to a
room and there's like toilets next to my bed. It's
really weird and the vibe is really very weird. And
there's a lot of clothes in my room, like women
clothes and stuff like perfume, shoes, like somebody left in
(27:35):
a hurry, you know. So I asked him, like what
happened with the previous backpacker, Like why did she left
so many things behind? And he said, oh, look, her
suitcase was really full, so she just left some things.
This was really expensive clothes, work close like channel, perfume
and the things that you usually carry with you.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Selene has no work on her first day, so it
ends with the home cooked meal with Steve and his wife.
The next day, when Steve says there is no work
and he just wants her to be his drinking body,
she gets upset.
Speaker 7 (28:11):
The fact that he played me made me very angry,
and I think he understood and said, okay, okay, I'm
going to find something for you to do, so I
think he asked me to feed the horses, and then
it was five o'clock, so I went back to the
house and instead in the shed drinking wine on his own.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
On the way back to the house, Selene received messages
from Steve. He was upset about their dinner conversation the
previous night when Selene mentioned the planning to meet some
backpackers for coffee over the weekend. In the messages, he
told her he didn't want her meeting or having sex
with strangers.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
I showed the text to his wife and wasn't surprised
about the fact that he was sending me very sexual
text and she said, look, some stuff happened in the
past with previous backpackers. And I was like, like what,
and she didn't want to tell me, and she said, look,
he's very, very sick mentally, he's depressed, and anyway, we
(29:13):
don't have money to pay you, so stay if you
want that we want to have any money from us.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Confused and angry about why she's still at his farm,
Seline decides to confront Stayed. It's already dark and the
dogs are barking widely in the distance inside the shed,
stay your sex by a small fire, drinking.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
Like, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (29:38):
You don't have money to pay me? The sexual text,
like what's going on? What's wrong with you? And he said, Oh,
you don't understand, you don't understand.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
I said what. Then he said, I'm in love with you.
I guess you to come because I'm in love with you.
I love you, I love you.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
And at some point he stood up and he tried
to grab me, like to grab my arm. I ran
to the house and and he followed me like it
was like running after me, and screamed them back and back,
and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Selene runs frantically back to the house, desperate to escape Steve.
She locks herself inside the office, wedging a chair under
the doorknob for extra security. Steve is close behind, pounding
on the door and shouting for her to open it.
Speaker 7 (30:26):
I opened the computer and it wasn't any passwords, so
I was really happy. So I could connect on Facebook
and put something on the Facebook group like help, I'm
in the farm and the guy is very creepy. And
then like I had a lot offenses and a lot
offenses from girls.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
One of the girls is Chloe.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
So I reached this girl on Facebook. So I explained
to her what happened, and I was asking her what
she was doing and what was going on there. So
at that moment I realized that maybe I should have
done something about it and posted on Facebook and tried
to reach people and tell them about what happened. I
(31:06):
posted a message on a lot of Facebook groups and yeah,
I think one person report the farm.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Selene says that five girls who had worked for Steve
reached out to share their stories. Among them, one that
told her something Selene would never forget.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
She said, look, there's a lot of backstories about him.
I was working for him as well. I had to
escape because apparently one.
Speaker 8 (31:39):
Of the dog attacks attacted her.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
And that she was hurt and she was bleeding, and
she said, look there's more. There's a girl and she
was working for him for a year and E raped
her and she got pregnant and she had to escape.
The girl who had the baby texted me actually and
she said, yes, everything is true. I worked for him
for a year. I was stuck. I didn't know what
(32:02):
to do. I was very young and immature, and even
so it was a bit overwhelming, you.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Know, inside Steve's office. Seline managed to contact the police,
who arrived in forty five minutes. In the meantime, several
people offered to help, some even offering to call police
or come to pick her up. When the police arrived,
Steve is gone. He's taken the quad bike and driven off.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
So I tried to talk to the police. They couldn't
do anything. They said, yes, we are aware, there's a
lot of stories about him. We know about the previous girls,
but there's an investigation and there's nothing else we can do.
We went to the police station and yeah, you're going
to sign a report and then you need to leave
because you can't stay here.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
It's not a ho tell, you know.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
But I didn't know anybody in New southwell, actually I
didn't know anybody. And yeah, at the end of the story,
that's that's it.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
In the next few hours, Selene's post get hundreds of
comments from backpackers and is shared in other groups to
warn others. New South Wales Police have confirmed Selene's report,
but there is currently no active investigation. Steve has also
been reported to the RSPCA, who confirmed his address matches
(33:27):
a complaint about his cattle.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
I feel like there's no rules. Nobody you respect the rules,
and I really don't know. That's why I'm writing a
letter to the Prime Minister because I I've seen so
many things and I'm so angry about the whole farming
situation in Australia. But I don't really know what's possible
to do, you know, maybe just relate this farmwork. I
(33:53):
know that fans are looking for people and workers. I
know that we are human. I mean, we don't deserve
to be treated like this.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
In March twenty twenty three, the final review of Australia's
migration system concluded that a lack of clarity on its
goals contributed to many issues. Though not tasked with addressing exploitation,
the panel highlighted areas where it could occur. One recommendation
was to remove the farm work requirement for working holiday makers.
(34:28):
Associate Professor Howell, I.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Think that that was an unsurprising recommendation because the wealth
of the event has been showing that the writing is
on the wall for the eighty eight days. But what
they can do is reform the Palm scheme, which is
the scheme of the Pacific countries.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
Many farms forced labor shortages by hiring Pacific Island workers.
For the report says they won't stay if farms don't
improve their cultural awareness and make workers feel safe.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The Palm Scheme or Pacific Ostra Aelian Mobility Scheme brings
workers from nine Pacific Island countries and team or less.
Like the Working holiday Maker Program, it is temporary and
has been criticized by the National Farmers' Federation for being
inaccessible to smaller growers. Mister Shannon explains, so.
Speaker 9 (35:19):
There's I guess relying on the Palm. Also, it comes
with it's costly to engage with the Palm scheme. There's
a number of support requirements, travel, accommodation, welfare, etc. That
employers need to cover that makes it difficult for smaller
employers to engage with it. All of that support requires
an amount of administration that many smaller employers simply don't
(35:42):
have people on staff to deal with. The Palm scheme
will play a really important part in that, but we
don't want to be reliant on it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Another recommendation from the panelist to ensure proper wage payment
was to involve the government agencies like the Australian taxation offers.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So in the review we talk about the importance of
triangulating data and so using the Australian Tax Office to
work out where the workers are being paid correctly. I
think that that's an important recommendation across the whole migration program.
We need to empower enforcement agencies, not just their fairware compressmen,
but we need to empower unions and community groups to
(36:25):
really be involved in what's happening.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
A month after the final review of Australia's migration system,
Home of Fair Minister Claire O'Neill announced the release of
the report at the National Press Club.
Speaker 10 (36:38):
We asked former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister
and Cabinet Doctor Martin Parkinson to work with two of
Australia's foremost migration experts, Professor Johanna Howe and John Azarius,
to help our government get this system working in our
national interest, and today we have released their report.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
The government has also or produced a second report focusing
on migrant worker exploitation, explains Associate Professor Howell. She hopes
it would lead to mechanisms that empower migrant workers to
access illegal remedies.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Because I think what we've realized is it is not
enough to say that migrants are equal under the law.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
To Australian workers.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
What we've realized is that there are significant drivers for
that group that caused them to stay silent when they
exploit them them they can't access through the remedies. So
I understand that the government is announcing a package of
reforms that will go somewhere to address that.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Since the announcement, the Government has proposed new measures in
the Migration Amendment Protecting Migrant Workers BUILD twenty twenty one,
including criminal offenses, civil penalties, and temporary hiring bands for
employers exploiting migrant workers. Since they're time I'm on the farm, Laura,
(38:01):
Celine and Chloe have heard of more girls who've been
at Steve's farm, some with even worse experiences, but too
scared to speak out.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Laura, So, first of all, I think of it quite often.
I always have, not a daily thing, but.
Speaker 8 (38:22):
It took me.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Probably about a full year to really get over it
and have it like settled in my head. I replay
it a lot after I left.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
Then sort of.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
After a year it was kind of like, oh, yeah,
you know, it sort of nearly becomes like a distant well,
it becomes distant memory and comes like almost like a
bit of a dream, like that never really happened now,
Like I'm just angry, like at him, at the whole situation.
There's times I get angry at myself. We're not having
(38:56):
left sooner, We're not having made a bigger noise, not
having demanded that the police come to the property. And
I'm not saying that I wasn't taken seriously, but learning
about what's happened to others since my visit, you know,
I sometimes wish I could have made some sort of change.
(39:18):
I just get quite angry that you know that these
young girls are just come to this country and can
just end up in a situation like that because of
putting ad out on comtray because they're want a second year.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Lisa, you have listened to seven New Spectrum The Dark
Side of Australia's Migration System with me marln Heglund as
the producer of this podcast. I want to share that
I also completed eighty eight days of farm work in
twenty fourteen. While I personally didn't experience sexual harassment or assault,
(39:51):
I heard countless of stories from young women who did.
If you or someone you know is struggling with workplace issues,
you can choose to make make an anonymous report to
Fair Work online or call them on thirteen thirteen ninety
four four. Issues relating to workplace sexual harassment or assault
call one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred seven
(40:14):
three seven seven three two. In an emergency, call triple zero.
So the labor migration system in Australia is fundamentally broken,
and I know that's a big call.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
At the Australian Government's Skills and Jobs Summit in twenty
twenty two, Associate Professor Joanna Howell called out Australia's migration
system for being ripe with exploitation.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But at the.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Same time as shortage is a endemic, we have an
entrenched systemic problem with migrant worker exploitation.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I was the.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Naive person to think I'd go out to a farm
and do legitimate work and not get looked at, not
get touched, not get harassed.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
To be honest, it's retail job.
Speaker 7 (01:00):
We are human and we don't deserve to be treated.
Speaker 8 (01:02):
Like like this.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Our current basis system is one that invites exploitation for
farm work and it's something that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
For a long time now, in the horticulture industry has
been reliant upon working holiday makers or backpackers for this
seasonal harvest labor supply.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You're listening to seven New Spectrum with me Malin Heglund
and this is the dark side of Australia's migration system.
This episode contains personal stories of sexual harassment for legal reasons.
Some names in this podcast have been changed. Actually, in
(01:48):
winter twenty seventeen, graphic designer Laura takes a break from work.
After seven years of dreaming, she is finally heading to Australia.
Speaker 8 (02:01):
I'm just saying closed.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
So I think I had always dreamt of coming to Australia.
I think it had been on my mind for about
seven years. A lot of my friends seem to be
doing the same thing, heading out to Australia for the
one year working holiday and never coming back. Because I
had a bit of the typical wanderlust, I was sort
of like, right, I really want to see what all
(02:27):
the fusses about.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That year, Laura will join over two hundred thousands of
backpackers entering Australia on a working holiday visa. Like many others,
she'll aim for a second year visa by completing eighty
eight days of regional farm work.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
So I did a little bit of traveling and met
a couple of friends, did Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Speaker 8 (02:54):
And during that time I put an.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Advert up on gum Tree of myself just saying hey,
I'm Laura, I'm from Ireland. I'm in Australia for a year,
and I'm looking to do farm work that's going to
count towards my idiot days to access my second year
working things.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Within a few days, Laura receives a response from a
man referred to in this episode as Deed. He owns
a cattle farm in regional New South Wales with cows, sheep, dogs,
and horses that he says that she can ride. Having
ridden horses in her youth, Laura thinks this sounds like
(03:33):
a great opportunity.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Even said you know all or just you know, whatever
you end up doing, just make sure that you're very
careful about where you go. There's a lot of strange
people out there in Australia that would be willing to
take advantage of young people such as yourself. So I
think even him saying that sort of actually gives me
the comfort to go.
Speaker 8 (03:56):
Oh, you're actually a pretty good egg. You're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Laura feels nervous about meeting Steve, especially since he's much
older and a stranger. When they meet at the train station,
everything seems fine. He talks a lot about himself and
she's too tired from the traveling to mind, but soon
into the drive she starts to notice some odd comments.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
You mentioned that he had had a previous blackpacker at
his property. But she only stayed for I think it
was two days, he said. And I didn't really ask
any questions because he seemed.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
To do a lot of talking. Said, oh, some sweedish girls.
She didn't say very long. Doesn't she like the dog?
She just took off.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
No, I didn't touch her. I didn't touch her. It
just made me go, oh, well, maybe he did. So
he brought me on to the farm anywhere and showed
me a rhyme.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The house, though it's tied, feels stuck in the seventies,
with unfinished walls and a carpet. Laura's room is set
up in the same house as Steve and his wife,
looks like a mix of a sunroom and a child's bedroom.
A teddy bear sits on the night stand, and there's
a sink and a plastic bucket by the closet. It
(05:20):
doesn't take long for her to realize why she hasn't
been shown the bathroom.
Speaker 8 (05:25):
I started to go, where's the toilet?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
To my heart, then he presented me with this clear
plastic bucket, the sort that you would get a kilogram
of Harry blow in, and he told me not to
go outside at nighttime, for they left the dog's ee
and the dogs aren't socialized, and also snakes and other
Australian things that are trying to kill you. So he
suggested that I a year in it into this bucket
(05:53):
overnight and then I empty at out in.
Speaker 8 (05:56):
The utility room the next morning.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The first evening, she just focused on getting familiar with
the place and unpacked her things. She also got to
meet Steve's wife over dinner, and she seemed nice.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
He's very very lovely, doesn't say a lot, you know.
Speaker 8 (06:16):
We had sort of very surface level chat and but
she made me feel really welcome.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
And you asked me all about when you come from,
what you're doing here, and sort of felt like.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
What am I doing here? I'm not sure yet.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Work started early the next morning, though not early enough
for Laura to see Steve's wife preparing breakfast before leaving
for work. Steve, clearly curious about Laura, wasted no time
asking her questions.
Speaker 8 (06:51):
He just started almost interrogating me.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
He wanted to know absolutely everything you know from when
I was born, where I was born, whom.
Speaker 8 (07:00):
My parents are do my parents know where I am?
Do I know what my parents are leaving me in
their will?
Speaker 5 (07:08):
He was very interested to know all about my boyfriend
back in Ireland. He wanted to know how long we'd
been together, if we were sexually active with one another.
He wanted to know if I'd ever cheated on him
or anybody.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
The conversation felt so strange that Laura couldn't take it seriously,
so she tried to laugh it off. As she reassured
herself that Steve was just an eccentric farmer, she grew
increasingly concerned about what he might be capable of. On
Day three, Steve made his first move, laying his hands
(07:47):
on her.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
He came into my bedroom one morning, well I was
still I think I was just waking up, and he
sat on the end of the bed and he put
his hand up the bottom of the sheets and grabbed
my feet and started tickling my fate and he's, oh,
tickler shu wee thing, harn't you Well I very quickly
sort of said, sorry, this is not appropriate.
Speaker 8 (08:13):
Can you please leave?
Speaker 5 (08:15):
And he sort of scoffed and rolled his eyes stormed
out of the room.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
By this point, Laura was unsure of what to do.
She had noticed his behavior was unpredictable and his mood unstable.
Some days he was dressed about the drought, while other
days he was angry about the struggle to feed his cattle.
By the end of week one. This made it hard
for her to ask for her.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Pay, stranded in a sense, you know, because I didn't
have much money to.
Speaker 8 (08:50):
My name at the time.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
You know, a lot of people don't when they first
come to Australia. And I have a horrible feeling, and
he sort of knew that maybe who knows, but the
way the panda wouldn't really surprise me.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
A twenty eighteen Fair Work Ombutzmann investigation found that thirty
percent of employers in the agricultural sector with held wages,
and nearly half of the non compliant businesses were still
operating when revisited. This issue is partly due to migrants
being unaware of their rights or too afraid to speak up,
(09:27):
but another part of the problem is also the fact
that some parts of the agricultural industry had been played
by a labor shortage for decades and had been given
backpackers as a band aid solution. Richard Channon Executive officer
of the National Farmers' Federations Horticultural Council, attributes the shortage
(09:47):
to location, low wages and tough seasonal work.
Speaker 9 (09:51):
I wouldn't say the system has failed, it's just that
far from perfect at the moment. For a long time,
the the horticulture industry has been reliant upon working holiday
makers or backpackers for this seasonal harvest labor supply. Before COVID,
backpackers made up to eighty percent of our seasonal workforce,
(10:13):
which is a significant number. And our view for a
long time has been that we can do better than that.
We can design for a better system that isn't overly
reliant on one particular source of workers, that provides our
industries with more secure, reliable and productive workers.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So the labor migration system in Australia is fundamentally broken
and I know that's a big call.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
At the twenty twenty two Jobs and Skills Summits, Adelaide University,
Associate Professor Joanna Howe addressed Parliament. She was chosen by
Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil, along with two others, to
help reform Australia's migration system, having previously researched the experiences
of temporary migrant women facing sexual harassment on Australian farms.
(11:10):
How saw this as an opportunity to highlight the issue.
Her team's research revealed that the farm work requirement was
a major factor behind working holiday makers vulnerability to sexual harassment.
Speaker 8 (11:25):
We got it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
They were willing to put up with all sorts of
exploitative conditions in order to get a second year on
their visa. So I think the way that we designed
these resources can invite exploitation or it can prevent an
limited exploitation. And our current visa system is one that
invites exploitation for farm work, and it's something that needs
to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
More than two weeks after Laura arrived on the farm,
a few strange things have happened. As Laura became more confident,
Steve showed her his record backpackers, bragging about how lucky
she was to have been chosen.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
So he stormed off into his study and he brings
back out this little black, leather, palm sized black book
and starts to open it and shows me all of
these names and tells me, I find all of these
girls off country and there right enough. There was lists
(12:25):
I do not know. I think maybe eighty ninety one
hundred names.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
This week, Laura was also bitten by one of these
dogs while riding the quad bike with him.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
I got off the quad and I started crying because
it was quite a painful bite, and he immediately goes
from my jeans and starts to pull them down. I'm
fighting him, going what on earth are you doing? And
he's like, I need to see need to see the bite.
I need to see if the skin's broken, because if
it's broken, you'll need to go to hospital.
Speaker 8 (13:04):
To get a tetanus.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
And I was like, thank you, but I can look
for myself, while still fighting with him to hold my
trousers up, and eventually he overforced me and was able
to pull down my trousers and my underwear came with them.
So I stood there, absolutely humiliated, while he started grabbing
my rear to look at said dog bite.
Speaker 8 (13:28):
And then just said, oh, forgiveness sinks, It's just a scratch.
You're fine.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
By this point, Laura had begun recording what was happening
on the farm to share with her boyfriend in Ireland.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
To excuse the saying, may I've been in the cattle
yard all day.
Speaker 8 (13:46):
But yeah, I kind of want to talk to about
some stuff. I just don't know if I'm gonna be
staying here.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
However, due to the poor signal on the farm, she
could only say the recordings on her phone to send later.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
But anyway, can't make this too long because I'm spend
just he keeps asking really weird questions, and today he
actually nearly had me in tears because he just started
going on and on about us. There's so much other
stuff on it and stuff I'm actually scared to put
in an email as well, because it's his desktop computer.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
As time went on and my days turned into weeks,
you know, I just I think I was just putting
up with it.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
I was definitely aware that it.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Wasn't right and there was something very wrong and strange
about his behavior, but I hadn't got to this stage
yet where I was contemplating phoning the police. I think
at one stage I phoned a taxi company and give
them the address to see if they knew where it was,
because it wasn't ready to phone the police because what
(14:47):
could I say.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
This guy's saying weird things to me, He's touching my feet.
They would have told me to wise up, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Associate Professor Howell explains that many migrant women see sexual
harassment as part of the farm work experience. She has
found that while many are aware of their mistreatment to
avoid worrying their loved ones, some are also hesitant to
contact authorities for fear of being forced to leave the country.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Frame of references, if it's not sexual assault, then I
should just put up with it, even though in our
law those type of behaviors on the spectrum would be
caused sexual harassment. And what I think you'd find is
Australian women would say I'm not going to put up
with that, But temporary migrant women had different leavers and pressures,
and so often they were put up with a spectrum
(15:45):
of harassment that might not amount to assault, but is
still quite serious.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Just over three weeks later, Laura learns that Steve has
planned it to Queensland. He tells her he needs to
pick up a horse and invites her to join him
for horse riding lessons.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
He tells me, right, we're going to go up to
Queensland to pick up a horse from a.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Couple that I know and that i've broken in horses
of his in the past, and I said, where are
we going? I looked on Google Maps.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
It's fourteen hours away in the car and he said, right,
you're going to be coming with me, and we're going
to spend the night up there, and you're gonna get
some horse riding lessons from this lady.
Speaker 8 (16:33):
He's very very good at riding. And I said, write, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Steve told his wife the plan over dinner. They would
spend the night at the house of the couple who
trained the horse, and then return the next day. But
as Laura sat in the car heading to Queensland, she
would soon learn Steve had lied to both her and
his wife. This would be Laura's last time working for Steve.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
I'd fallen asleep on the side of the door and
the front of you is youth, and when I woke up,
his hand was sort of in between my back and
my breast, sort of on this bit underneath my armpit,
and with this sort of fingers touching the side of
my breast, and I sort of got off and realized
(17:22):
where he was touching me, and wasn't sure how long
that had been happening for. And it was very very awkward,
and then I was like going, oh, no, Like what's
this trip really about? You know, what's going to happen here?
Like the tone that's being set is just not good.
And I instantly regretted not having brought my passports with
(17:45):
me and also my laptop before we got there. He
tells me, no, we're not staying there, We're staying in hotel,
and then I was like, I really hope it's separate rooms.
And during the car journey after that, he went completely
silent for about two hours.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Shortly after arriving at the horse farm, Laura and Steve separate.
Laura is taken aside by the woman for her horse
riding lesson, while Steve goes to the man to check
on the horse. They begin with some footwork and pressure
points before taking the horses out for a walk along
a quiet country road.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
And so the pair of us go out and she
turns to me and says, Laura, I just I want
to let you know that he's not a friend of ours.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
We've only dealt with him a couple of times.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
That being said, I just want to ask you if
everything is okay.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
I just broke I just broke down, and I said.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I've got myself into a weird situation and I don't
know how to get out. I could see the horror
on her face, and she said, no, no, no, this isn't right.
Speaker 8 (19:02):
We need to get you out of there.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You know, I sort of felt a bit embarrassed telling her,
because again, if you can say, oh, well, he's ripped
me or he's tried to have sex made, doesn't really
ever sign that bad.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
After Laura explained that she had left her travel documents
and laptop behind, she and the woman exchanged numbers. The woman,
knowing which motel Steve had booked for the night, was
also reassured that they would be returning the next morning.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
We rock up with the motel.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Laura asks for the room keys while Steve parks, but
when she gives the woman at the counter Steve's last name,
she is shocked to find only one double bedroom is booked.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
And I just looked out the windowed him parking up,
and I looked back at her and I said, I
have no time to explain, but if can you change it,
can you please get us two rooms or do something.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
I can not be in the same room as this man.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
There's my boss, as soon as I said that, she
went okay, and she had a quick look and she said, well,
there is like a duplex apartment room and it has
two bedrooms and there's locks on the doors, and sort
of made this eye contact.
Speaker 8 (20:17):
With me as if to say, I sense.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
That there's not something not quite right here, and I'm
gonna let you know there's locks on the bedroom doors
just in case you need them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The duplex was small but simple, with a shared living
room and kitchen separated by an island. Steve, who hasn't
mentioned anything about upgrading the room, settles onto the couch
while Laura stands behind the island, and.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
He patiently he said, come here and sit beside me
and give me a kiss. That's why I just said no, like,
I'm not coming to slip beside you like, and then
starts getting angry at me for being naive, you know,
saying well, what did you expect, you know, when you
(21:05):
come to Australia, when you come to work on a farm,
do you not expect that people are gonna look at you,
touch you, make advances at you, you know? And I said, yes,
that's exactly what I expect, and he seemed horrified at
me for not wanting to engage in touching each other
(21:28):
and kissing, and I was just I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
And he got very, very flustered when.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
I said, you know, no, like you absolutely cannot touch me.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
That's not okay. I got called an ugly bitch and
I was like, right, I've had enough. Good night. And
he started to follow me and started to grab me,
and I was like no, no, no.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
So I got into the bedroom and I slammed the
door and locked it and he started banging on the
door and said, oh, come on, Laura, come on.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
Come on, I come on. And I didn't say a word.
I just went side and he's like, what do you
think I'm going to do? Try and radio?
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Well, I just might, and then heard him stumble off.
We had a few beers. So I went to bed
that night with that ringing in my ears and that's on.
Speaker 7 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (22:19):
I was like, this is this is it? That's it,
and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Laura returned to the Forum with Steve and was eventually
paid by his wife before leaving for good. It wasn't
until she was back at the train station waiting to
return to Sydney, as she called her mom and shared
everything for the first time.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I never let her into I'm not in an okay situation.
That's when I think it all sort of just hit
me like a ton of bricks and I was like
that that was a close ship.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Laura eventually returned to the Queensland couple's house, where they
helped her finally report with the police.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
All I wanted was for no other girl to go
near that farm in Kiss. The way his behavior was
escalating continued to escalate while they were there. And then
what's sad is that years later I find out that
still it continued.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
To her surprise, A few weeks later, someone higher up
in the force call to express concern about her case.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
He said, historically, this is how they begin. That's what
he said. Take that from that what you will.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
For this podcast, Laura has shared a copy of her
police report. She later heard of more stories from female backpackers,
some similar to hers, while others involved women being offered
more money in exchange for performing oral sex for their employers.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Sometimes feel really bad, you know, these stories have given
some very good farms a bad name, but.
Speaker 8 (24:07):
It does seem to be quite a common thing. I
police it. I just I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Like mister Shannon, a member of an organization representing farmers,
believes that while it's important to call out poor behavior
among farmers, a regulated labor hiring system could make a
significant difference industry calling out poor behavior and not accepting,
(24:36):
you know, neighbors and growers in their in their communities
doing the wrong thing, and referring them wherever they can
to authorities.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Authorities doing a better job of following up those referrals
and the and the notifications that have been sent by
industry and by by workers, and making sure that people
are penalized and taken through the courts where necessary, and
also that that licensing of labor higher. I think those
three things together would go a long way to solving
these issues.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
In twenty nineteen, one year after Laura's time at Steve's farm,
the Australian government introduced a third working holiday visa. This
came despite media reports exposing the ongoing financial and sexual
abuse of backpackers on farms, and the Fair Work Ombootman
acknowledging their vulnerability to exploitation due to low awareness of
(25:27):
workplace rights and limited access to help.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think this is really in response to pressure from industry,
saying that they've got labor shortages and they need overseas
workers to work on farms. But the problem is it's
just exacerbating the issues from that first year.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
In January twenty twenty one, French backpacker Chloe had been
in Australia for just over a year, with two months
having passed since she left Steve's farm. However, unlike Chloe
left after just twenty eight hours.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
I really felt anxious, like I felt like something my
room would happen.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Chloe, who decided to leave after hearing noises outside of
her window at night, didn't feel the need to report Steve,
as he had only acted strangely. However, two months later,
she was shocked to see a post about him on Facebook.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
I was in Barron Bay and I I was on Facebook,
and I saw a message, a message from a French
girl and who said that there was sort of something
really strange about this farm. And then I realized it
might be the same farm.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
So I asked the name.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
Of the farm, and I realized that there was something
very wrong about this farm.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Selene, whose real name is something Else, has just arrived
at Dave's farm. Like the others she was contacted on Gumtry,
promised horse riding lessons and warned about the dangers of
traveling alone.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
I arrived to his house and there's like his wife,
and the house is really old. I've got to a
room and there's like toilets next to my bed. It's
really weird and the vibe is really very weird. And
there's a lot of clothes in my room, like women
clothes and stuff like perfume, shoes, like somebody left in
(27:35):
a hurry, you know. So I asked him, like what
happened with the previous backpacker, Like why did she left
so many things behind? And he said, oh, look, her
suitcase was really full, so she just left some things.
This was really expensive clothes, work close like channel, perfume
and the things that you usually carry with you.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Selene has no work on her first day, so it
ends with the home cooked meal with Steve and his wife.
The next day, when Steve says there is no work
and he just wants her to be his drinking body,
she gets upset.
Speaker 7 (28:11):
The fact that he played me made me very angry,
and I think he understood and said, okay, okay, I'm
going to find something for you to do, so I
think he asked me to feed the horses, and then
it was five o'clock, so I went back to the
house and instead in the shed drinking wine on his own.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
On the way back to the house, Selene received messages
from Steve. He was upset about their dinner conversation the
previous night when Selene mentioned the planning to meet some
backpackers for coffee over the weekend. In the messages, he
told her he didn't want her meeting or having sex
with strangers.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
I showed the text to his wife and wasn't surprised
about the fact that he was sending me very sexual
text and she said, look, some stuff happened in the
past with previous backpackers. And I was like, like what,
and she didn't want to tell me, and she said, look,
he's very, very sick mentally, he's depressed, and anyway, we
(29:13):
don't have money to pay you, so stay if you
want that we want to have any money from us.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Confused and angry about why she's still at his farm,
Seline decides to confront Stayed. It's already dark and the
dogs are barking widely in the distance inside the shed,
stay your sex by a small fire, drinking.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
Like, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (29:38):
You don't have money to pay me? The sexual text,
like what's going on? What's wrong with you? And he said, Oh,
you don't understand, you don't understand.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
I said what. Then he said, I'm in love with you.
I guess you to come because I'm in love with you.
I love you, I love you.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
And at some point he stood up and he tried
to grab me, like to grab my arm. I ran
to the house and and he followed me like it
was like running after me, and screamed them back and back,
and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Selene runs frantically back to the house, desperate to escape Steve.
She locks herself inside the office, wedging a chair under
the doorknob for extra security. Steve is close behind, pounding
on the door and shouting for her to open it.
Speaker 7 (30:26):
I opened the computer and it wasn't any passwords, so
I was really happy. So I could connect on Facebook
and put something on the Facebook group like help, I'm
in the farm and the guy is very creepy. And
then like I had a lot offenses and a lot
offenses from girls.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
One of the girls is Chloe.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
So I reached this girl on Facebook. So I explained
to her what happened, and I was asking her what
she was doing and what was going on there. So
at that moment I realized that maybe I should have
done something about it and posted on Facebook and tried
to reach people and tell them about what happened. I
(31:06):
posted a message on a lot of Facebook groups and yeah,
I think one person report the farm.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Selene says that five girls who had worked for Steve
reached out to share their stories. Among them, one that
told her something Selene would never forget.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
She said, look, there's a lot of backstories about him.
I was working for him as well. I had to
escape because apparently one.
Speaker 8 (31:39):
Of the dog attacks attacted her.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
And that she was hurt and she was bleeding, and
she said, look there's more. There's a girl and she
was working for him for a year and E raped
her and she got pregnant and she had to escape.
The girl who had the baby texted me actually and
she said, yes, everything is true. I worked for him
for a year. I was stuck. I didn't know what
(32:02):
to do. I was very young and immature, and even
so it was a bit overwhelming, you.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Know, inside Steve's office. Seline managed to contact the police,
who arrived in forty five minutes. In the meantime, several
people offered to help, some even offering to call police
or come to pick her up. When the police arrived,
Steve is gone. He's taken the quad bike and driven off.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
So I tried to talk to the police. They couldn't
do anything. They said, yes, we are aware, there's a
lot of stories about him. We know about the previous girls,
but there's an investigation and there's nothing else we can do.
We went to the police station and yeah, you're going
to sign a report and then you need to leave
because you can't stay here.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
It's not a ho tell, you know.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
But I didn't know anybody in New southwell, actually I
didn't know anybody. And yeah, at the end of the story,
that's that's it.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
In the next few hours, Selene's post get hundreds of
comments from backpackers and is shared in other groups to
warn others. New South Wales Police have confirmed Selene's report,
but there is currently no active investigation. Steve has also
been reported to the RSPCA, who confirmed his address matches
(33:27):
a complaint about his cattle.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
I feel like there's no rules. Nobody you respect the rules,
and I really don't know. That's why I'm writing a
letter to the Prime Minister because I I've seen so
many things and I'm so angry about the whole farming
situation in Australia. But I don't really know what's possible
to do, you know, maybe just relate this farmwork. I
(33:53):
know that fans are looking for people and workers. I
know that we are human. I mean, we don't deserve
to be treated like this.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
In March twenty twenty three, the final review of Australia's
migration system concluded that a lack of clarity on its
goals contributed to many issues. Though not tasked with addressing exploitation,
the panel highlighted areas where it could occur. One recommendation
was to remove the farm work requirement for working holiday makers.
(34:28):
Associate Professor Howell, I.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Think that that was an unsurprising recommendation because the wealth
of the event has been showing that the writing is
on the wall for the eighty eight days. But what
they can do is reform the Palm scheme, which is
the scheme of the Pacific countries.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
Many farms forced labor shortages by hiring Pacific Island workers.
For the report says they won't stay if farms don't
improve their cultural awareness and make workers feel safe.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The Palm Scheme or Pacific Ostra Aelian Mobility Scheme brings
workers from nine Pacific Island countries and team or less.
Like the Working holiday Maker Program, it is temporary and
has been criticized by the National Farmers' Federation for being
inaccessible to smaller growers. Mister Shannon explains, so.
Speaker 9 (35:19):
There's I guess relying on the Palm. Also, it comes
with it's costly to engage with the Palm scheme. There's
a number of support requirements, travel, accommodation, welfare, etc. That
employers need to cover that makes it difficult for smaller
employers to engage with it. All of that support requires
an amount of administration that many smaller employers simply don't
(35:42):
have people on staff to deal with. The Palm scheme
will play a really important part in that, but we
don't want to be reliant on it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Another recommendation from the panelist to ensure proper wage payment
was to involve the government agencies like the Australian taxation offers.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So in the review we talk about the importance of
triangulating data and so using the Australian Tax Office to
work out where the workers are being paid correctly. I
think that that's an important recommendation across the whole migration program.
We need to empower enforcement agencies, not just their fairware compressmen,
but we need to empower unions and community groups to
(36:25):
really be involved in what's happening.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
A month after the final review of Australia's migration system,
Home of Fair Minister Claire O'Neill announced the release of
the report at the National Press Club.
Speaker 10 (36:38):
We asked former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister
and Cabinet Doctor Martin Parkinson to work with two of
Australia's foremost migration experts, Professor Johanna Howe and John Azarius,
to help our government get this system working in our
national interest, and today we have released their report.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
The government has also or produced a second report focusing
on migrant worker exploitation, explains Associate Professor Howell. She hopes
it would lead to mechanisms that empower migrant workers to
access illegal remedies.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Because I think what we've realized is it is not
enough to say that migrants are equal under the law.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
To Australian workers.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
What we've realized is that there are significant drivers for
that group that caused them to stay silent when they
exploit them them they can't access through the remedies. So
I understand that the government is announcing a package of
reforms that will go somewhere to address that.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Since the announcement, the Government has proposed new measures in
the Migration Amendment Protecting Migrant Workers BUILD twenty twenty one,
including criminal offenses, civil penalties, and temporary hiring bands for
employers exploiting migrant workers. Since they're time I'm on the farm, Laura,
(38:01):
Celine and Chloe have heard of more girls who've been
at Steve's farm, some with even worse experiences, but too
scared to speak out.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Laura, So, first of all, I think of it quite often.
I always have, not a daily thing, but.
Speaker 8 (38:22):
It took me.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Probably about a full year to really get over it
and have it like settled in my head. I replay
it a lot after I left.
Speaker 8 (38:34):
Then sort of.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
After a year it was kind of like, oh, yeah,
you know, it sort of nearly becomes like a distant well,
it becomes distant memory and comes like almost like a
bit of a dream, like that never really happened now,
Like I'm just angry, like at him, at the whole situation.
There's times I get angry at myself. We're not having
(38:56):
left sooner, We're not having made a bigger noise, not
having demanded that the police come to the property. And
I'm not saying that I wasn't taken seriously, but learning
about what's happened to others since my visit, you know,
I sometimes wish I could have made some sort of change.
(39:18):
I just get quite angry that you know that these
young girls are just come to this country and can
just end up in a situation like that because of
putting ad out on comtray because they're want a second year.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Lisa, you have listened to seven New Spectrum The Dark
Side of Australia's Migration System with me marln Heglund as
the producer of this podcast. I want to share that
I also completed eighty eight days of farm work in
twenty fourteen. While I personally didn't experience sexual harassment or assault,
(39:51):
I heard countless of stories from young women who did.
If you or someone you know is struggling with workplace issues,
you can choose to make make an anonymous report to
Fair Work online or call them on thirteen thirteen ninety
four four. Issues relating to workplace sexual harassment or assault
call one eight hundred respect on one eight hundred seven
(40:14):
three seven seven three two. In an emergency, call triple zero.
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