Arabic version: فارلي يرحّب بوعد ألبانيزي بإنقاذ مصانع الأرز

According to The Guardian, One Nation MP David Farley said he was “impressed” after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave him an in-person assurance that the Labor government would help rice factories in Farley’s electorate.

Rice producer SunRice announced that 78 workers would be sacked from its mills in Leeton and Deniliquin. ABC’s Insiders host David Speers said a funding package was being prepared to assist the producer and save the jobs.

Farley said Albanese approached him at a Governor-General’s event and told him he was aware of the issue, was working on it and would get it done. Farley said they had also discussed how assistance could be put together while leaving the Senate chamber. “So you know, I tilt my hat to them,” he said.

In a separate appearance on Insiders, Farley rejected Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s claim that One Nation had no serious policies and only “thought bubbles”. He said the party’s policies involved substantial work and described its net overseas migration target as 130,000 plus a minimum of about 100,000 workers, including backpackers, Pacific workers and more skilled workers.

Farley said those workers were needed in productive sectors outside major urban areas, including agriculture, engineering and mining. Before his election, he had said Australia’s net overseas migration figure of 306,000 in the previous year was “probably not” too high; One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said she had discussed those comments with him.