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were forced to do free labour for several weeks to keep a roof over their heads.
Reading this sentence I initially thought, "fair enough" sounds like a reasonable trade but the further I read into it the worse it got and I think this would be a better description:
"were required to do collectively 100 hours a week so they had somewhere to park their caravan to live in"
I remember my cousin was out here for the working holiday visa thing years ago. Went out to do her six months looking after some kids for a family on a farm.
She lasted a couple weeks and decided their vile and racist shit towards her and everyone wasn't worth her sanity and came back to Perth. Found another job, better job, not long after.
The whole episode really brought home just how precarious and open to exploitation people entering these farm work situations are. My cousin had options, she had people she could call on for help, but that family could and probably did get people without that support after her, and i hate to think about how they fared.
I'm also confused why you would move the entire family across the country from 1 Town with no housing to a different town with no housing, low employment options.
When I was young we moved from outer Melbourne to a tiny little town about 5.5 hours away with less than a thousand people because it was all that mum could afford at the time, and then moved to a few other small towns in the area when rents went up. Sometimes moving to where the rents are cheaper can be your only option, and if the stars align can work out for the better, although it unfortunately didn't for the family in the article.
Geraldton was their destination because of family connections. Ms Careys grandfather lives there the article says.
It seems like they were hopping between caravan parks and campsites. Availability of sites, costs and perhaps maximum stay things would influence that. I don't think they would move around so much if they didn't need to.
Oh I absolutely get that but sure it is expensive to move a whole family across the country. Is the east coast really worse than Gero?