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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Cait Kelly

Man hospitalised without Medicare after being set ablaze shows precarity of Pacific Island fruit pickers

Fruit pickers with bananas
Fruit pickers on labor mobility (Palm) visas are in a precarious position with stories of low pay, poor conditions and unsatisfactory housing plaguing the program. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

A Pacific farmworker who left his fruit picking job to work for a labour hire company ended up in hospital, without access to Medicare, after he was allegedly set alight by another worker.

Sione Lavalu spent 74 days in the Royal Brisbane hospital with stage three burns earlier this year. When he was first admitted, almost half his body was affected, and doctors told his family he had a 20% chance of surviving.

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