False promises of the Seasonal Worker Program is causing devastating rifts in families

Many are coming to Australia for seasonal work to pick fruit and send money back home, but quickly find that the reality does not live up to what they were told before arriving.

A Tongan man who requested to be referred to only as 'T' said that when he arrived under the programme, there were over 78 who arrived. So many have fled the conditions that there are now only 25 left.

"We came here - the contract said the first two weeks of work and they'd pay for a month. They'd take fees after two weeks, and then there was nothing left," T said.

"We were supposed to only pay $1825 to the farm. I calculated all my stuff, it was over $4000 was already taken. It's been five weeks straight, we only get paid $100 a week."

"Some of them still get $100 a week, right now. They're still paying back for their flight and expenses."

He added that he'd also been lied to regarding bonuses or boosts.

"They said that if we pick more than eight trailers, we'd get a bonus. We did 11 or 13 trailers a day, no bonus."

T himself has fled the operation, after being kicked out when he refused to work on a Sunday for religious reasons. He added that they were promised five days work, but would often receive just one or two.

Carmel La Rocca, chairwoman of the Griffith Multicultural Council, said that it was no secret for a long time, but had gotten worse recently.

"I've heard anecdotal stories about this for quite a number of years, but lately in the last year or two, there's been more and more," she said.

"They get told one lot of information in their home country, and then when they come to Australia, they get told it's totally different."

Ms La Rocca said there were a number of cases where contractors or employers would withhold the worker's visa grant number, preventing them from checking the validity or applying for a different visa.

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'Golden Apple', a Tongan woman who works closely with the multicultural council, said that the issues were not with farmers, but with contractors working as middlemen between the islanders and the farmers.

"We need honest people, that's it. No more cheating. They are cheating upon the hat of Tongan people. The farmer is good, it's the people in between. They cheat between the government in Tonga and the farmer."

"The government in Tonga never know what that man changes here. He told something different in Tonga."

A key issue for her was relationships breaking up due to the lies and miscommunications.

She explained that some would leave Tonga on the promise of being able to send money back, and then find that they didn't have enough to send away.

"Heaps of broken families back there. The problems start from coming here ... the people that remain on the island think the person here must be looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend instead of them."

"If everything is okay, the workers won't run away. There's big trouble in there, that's why everyone runs," Golden Apple said.

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