ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Tonnes and tonnes of David Pearson’s oranges are going to rot this year because he can’t find workers, locally and internationally, to pick them.
The 69-year-old also wants you to feel sorry for him.
Mr Pearson told this masthead that he echoes the sentiments of the Prime Minister, who said earlier this week that many businesses around the country are struggling to find people willing to work for their money.
“This JobSeeker is too high,” he said.
“I can’t find anybody willing to pick fruit for $500 a week – which is the going rate and the national standard. I can’t match the $750 that the government is paying people right now to do nothing,”
“Even if I could match it, I doubt people would even bother then.”
The multimillionaire small businessman said he can’t afford to pay his workers more because the margins in the fruit industry are so thin – plus he has his own bills to pay.
For starters, Pearson said he has car payments on two Jaguar SUVs had he and his wife drive. Two of his children currently drive vehicles registered to the orange company, which he needs to pay for. Each vehicle has a fuel card, that he needs to pay for. There’s also a mortgage on a Lake Betoota beach house, as well as the capital gains tax he has to pay on the shares his mate tipped him off about during a round of golf. And then there’s the monthly minimum spend he has to maintain in order to keep his American Express Centurion Card. All of which pales in comparison to the school fees he says he has to cover for his grandchildren, as his own children decided sitting down on the couch and waiting for Daddy to die is an easier job than having a job. He says these are expenses that the working man doesn’t have.
“The company also made a profit this year so now I have a tax problem.”
More to come.
