John Williams, a former truck driver, shearer, farmer and small business owner who only took his place in the Senate on July 1, said he had seen many people living on employment benefits who were “determined not to work”.

Environmentalists point to the high voter concern about global warming and support for programs that will deliver abatement. However, recent polling shows that while 72 per cent of people supported the introduction of an emissions trading scheme, half of those polled admit they do not know what emissions trading is.

The Rudd Government has acted in response to serious labour shortages in horticulture and the inability to fill these vacancies from the domestic market. Its decision to import temporary workers from the Pacific islands follows a three-year campaign by the National Farmers Federation and a five-year campaign by the South Pacific nations.

The key to understanding why we have to recruit unskilled overseas workers from thousands of kilometres away when Australians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous people, are out of work lies in the perverse effects of our welfare system. Unemployed Australians have little to gain from swapping welfare for casual, unskilled pay rates.