Mr. Damian McDonald:

The answer to the Senator's question is that I do not know. The pilot project was a major effort in an area where we thought there were opportunities to draw people in and the numbers that went through with it were not at the anticipated level. Farmers are making huge efforts in villages and towns to try to get people to work on farms. Working on a farm is a cultural issue. It is not for everybody. It is probably not practical, realistic or ideal in a lot of situations for a person who grows up and lives in a town all of his or her life to go out and work on a farm. While a lot of the work might be seen as manual, one needs a fair degree of experience and skills.

It involves looking after animals. People would say one can teach a person to milk cows but it is not that simple. It is quite a technical operation. If one makes a mistake milking cows, I will not go into the nitty gritty of it but it is a very specialised job.