Umm Muhammed Umar

Australia seems to luring Asians to farm labour with the new agricultural visa and part or permanent residency. The Australian government has issued a policy called ‘Asian Farm Land’ or agricultural visa. On Radio Islam’s Asia – Pacific Report, Sanusha Naidoo reported that the visa is enabling Australia to address the shortage of labour, and access to labour in Australia’s agricultural sector. Agriculture workers are offered a three-year visa, and the option of applying for permanent residency.

The Australian agricultural market is experiencing a shortage of labour. However, questions are being raised about whether there is internal labour access in terms of people that are skilled, as well as looking at cheap short-term labour in order to help boost the agricultural sector. Naidoo says that advocacy groups are raising red flags around this policy. They argue that it could become an exploitative relationship, and that the policy is about exploiting cheap labour. Other questions raised are about whether workers that take on this visa will be given the proper amenities like housing, etc, or will it just be a modern-day indentured labour system.

Meanwhile, in China, in recent months, the Chinese government has responded to tech companies and in particular, big companies like the Ant Group and the Tencent Conglomerate, by trying to break their monopolies. It has been trying to bring them into line with the shared prosperity, goal of President Xi Jinping.

Naidoo says that the Chinese have become very nervous about the inequality within society; but they’re also concerned that if big companies, and tech companies, were allowed to ‘run away’ with it, they will become a power unto themselves. She said, “(this) of course doesn’t  necessarily translate into that shared common prosperity.” Naidoo added, “there was an essay that was written by an individual considered to be quite a powerful in Chinese society, and this commentary is aligning China to a cultural revolution 2.0.”

The Chinese have become very nervous about how much of gaming time they should allow their children – they’ve limited that to three hours a week. They are afraid their society will be overcome by Western decadence. Naidoo says the essay suggests that China needs to make sure that the cultural dynamics of shared prosperity comes in the context of how China reoriented society towards common prosperity. She says there’s the sense that there are people in China that feel that Chinese society needs to preserve its cultural dynamics and its cultural identity.

Meanwhile, in India, a study projects that pollution may reduce life expectancy of Indians by nine years. Air pollution, specifically, in northern India has become deadly. Naidoo says a report by a research company in the US states that about 480 million people in northern India, face the most extreme levels of air pollution in the world. These pollution levels are 10 times worse than found anywhere else in the world. This is going to be an added headache for the Indian government because it has a young population, which, according to Naidoo, is going to have a reduced life expectancy, which will have an impact on India’s economy.