Current News

The Australian Government has released a drought response, resilience and preparedness plan.

The plan is focused on 3 themes:

• Immediate action for those in drought.
• Support for the wider communities affected by drought.
• Long-term resilience and preparedness.

Read the detail in the Australian Government’s Drought Response, Resilience and Preparedness Plan.

Click here for more information on Immediate action for those affected right now...

The Australian Government is inviting applications for projects to deliver services under the National Landcare Program – Smart Farms Small Grants Round 3.

Smart Farms Small Grants is an open, competitive, grant opportunity to support projects to increase farming, forestry and fishing communities’ awareness, knowledge, skills and capacity to adopt best practice sustainable agriculture.

Click here for more info or to apply...

Piece rates
A piece rate is where an employee gets paid by the piece. This means the employee gets a pay rate for the amount picked, packed, pruned or made. When piece rates are paid, they apply instead of the hourly or weekly pay rate. An employee can be hired to work a mix of piece rates and hourly rate shifts.

Piecework agreement
You can access an interactive tool to help assist in the preparation of a Piecework Agreement. The tool will ask you simple questions and use your answers to tailor a piecework agreement. You will be able to save and edit the agreement at the end.

Visit the Fair Work website for more info of Pay and Piecework Rates...

If you head over to the CGA Website and the CGA facebook page you’ll see the VCA Cherry Brochure featured on both sites encouraging friends and family to drop in and buy farm fresh once the Cherry Season starts. 

The Victorian farmer’s Federation (VFF) have advised that contrary to earlier advice given in September at the VCA Grower information session on the new Hort Award changes, regarding public holidays and piece rates and the need to pay penalty rates for public holidays please note the following:
 
They VFF confirm, that there is no public holiday penalty rate to apply to piece rates. This advice applies only to piece rates.  The following excerpt is taken from the FWO Horticulture Showcase:

Overtime - Pieceworkers
Pieceworkers are not entitled to be paid overtime under the Horticulture Award, as they are paid by the piece instead of by the hour. An employee is entitled to be paid overtime if they are paid based on the number of hours they work.

Hours worked while earning a piecework rate do not count towards calculating overtime. Only time worked earning an hourly rate will count towards calculating overtime.

Please note, the VCA is only alerting you to something we have been made aware of, we are not providing wage advice. If you require more information or clarification on the above, we recommend you contact the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF).   

• what the law says about safe workplaces
• your responsibilities around managing risks on your farm
• how to rate risks on your farm
• how to prioritise and address the highest risk activities

Download the Safety Check here...