By Fedix team • • 3 min read
A coordinated inspection across the Nambucca Valley and Coffs Harbour regions is a timely reminder for accountants and tax agents working with horticulture growers and labour hire businesses: compliance readiness can span workplace, tax, migration and safety matters at once.
The Australian Taxation Office’s joint media release, “Regulators inspect Nambucca Valley region farms”, published 22 October 2026, says regulators inspected farms and labour hire businesses to check compliance. Read the ATO release. [ev:https://www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/regulators-inspect-nambucca-valley-region-farms]
What changed
The ATO reports that Operation Brambles brought together the Fair Work Ombudsman, the ATO, the Australian Border Force and SafeWork NSW. Officers were on the ground for two days that week and inspected berry farms, speaking with growers, pickers, packers, supervisors and third-party intermediaries such as labour hire businesses. [ev:https://www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/regulators-inspect-nambucca-valley-region-farms]
The release says the agencies were checking workplace, tax, migration and safety compliance and looking for possible phoenixing. It also makes clear that investigations are ongoing and no findings are yet available. These are reported inspections, not a finding that a particular business has breached an obligation. [ev:https://www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/regulators-inspect-nambucca-valley-region-farms]
The release describes the issues that led to target selection as known or alleged supply-chain histories. They included concerns about payment for time worked, piece-rate underpayments, penalty rates or casual loading, overtime, payslips, breaks, and tax and super obligations. The distinction matters: the ATO’s wording does not establish that every inspected business had these problems. [ev:https://www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/regulators-inspect-nambucca-valley-region-farms]
Who should take notice
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Book a demo (opens Microsoft Bookings in a new tab)Prefer to write? Contact us about a demo instead of booking a slotAccountants and tax agents serving growers, farm operators and labour hire businesses can use the release as a prompt to discuss how records and responsibilities fit together across a labour supply chain. The ATO says officers interviewed growers, workers and intermediaries, while the release identifies a range of workplace and tax concerns among the reasons targets were selected. [ev:https://www.ato.gov.au/media-centre/regulators-inspect-nambucca-valley-region-farms]
This is a conversation prompt, not a conclusion about a client’s position. A tax agent can help a client review the tax and super records within the agent’s engagement, while encouraging the client to seek advice from the relevant workplace or safety authority, or an appropriately qualified adviser, about matters outside that scope.
What to do next
A practical starting point is to map who engages workers, who supplies them, and where responsibility for each record sits. Then discuss whether the business can readily bring together its payroll and time records, payslips, contractor or labour hire arrangements, and tax and super records for review. The ATO release does not set out a new checklist or announce a change to the law; this is a general readiness discussion based on the topics it says the operation examined.
For example, an adviser might ask a grower and its labour hire provider to walk through a typical harvest shift: who records hours, who checks the pay calculation, which entity issues payslips, and how the related tax and super records are kept. The purpose is to identify questions and gaps for the responsible business to investigate, rather than to assume that an error has occurred.
If a client raises a concern about workplace, migration or safety obligations, keep the issue within the right professional scope and direct them to the relevant authority or a suitably qualified adviser. For tax questions, work from the client’s records and current authoritative material rather than assuming that an inspection report determines their outcome.
The ATO release is available here. Accountants and tax agents can use it to start a measured discussion about whether clients’ processes and records are ready to explain how their labour arrangements operate.