EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 3

EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS

AUSTRALIAN FARMERS COMPLAIN SETTLERS VICTIMISED BY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 30. Australian farmer organisations are urging the Federal Government to introduce share-farming legislation to protect immigrants from their fellowcountrymen already in Australia. The organisations have listed tricks used to induce immigrants to sign agreements they cannot understand enforcing them to work for nothing or for a pittance. The president of the New South Wales Vegetable Growers’ Federation, (Mr Stanley Hunt) cited the case of a farmer on the Murrumbidgee irrigation area who faked a killing to terrify two Italian immigrants into working for nothing. The Italians, who could not speak English, became dissatisfied and spoke of leaving. Their employer told them that someone was stealing his grapes. He rigged up a dummy, gave the men a gun, and told them to shoot th® intruder. When they fired the shot he tugged the dummy to the ground with a rope, then ran to the Italians, shouting that they had shot a man. He agreed to dispose of the -“body” and not to tell the police if the two men worked with him for two years for nothing. - Fishing industry authorities say that Chinese, Greeks, and Italians have been exploited by their own countrymen for years. Young men are brought to Australia to work in fishing boats and in cafes, but are not paid wages. Often a contract has been made between wealthy foreigners m Australia and the parents of the young immigrants. The men who do the work get nothing.