Tongan seasonal worker dies in Australia

A 35-year-old Tongan man working on a farm in the Bundaberg region, Queensland, Australia, was found dead on Thursday morning.

A Queensland Police spokesman told Courier Mail officers were called to the property shortly before 7am on Thursday.

“He said that at this stage the death was non-suspicious, and that an autopsy would be performed to identify the cause of death,” the online newspaper reported.

The death is the second of a Tongan on the Seasonal Worker Program in the Bundaberg region after Sione Vakameilalo Fifita died in the Royal Brisbane Hospital after falling into a coma in May last year.

In a special investigation by The Courier-Mail it has beenrevealed 13 workers had died on the Seasonal Worker Program, with extreme neglect allegedly contributing to a number of deaths and serious injuries” in Australia.

The Tongan community will hold a memorial service in Bundaberg, it has been reported.

“There have been 13 deaths since the program became official in 2012, at least eight of them in Queensland.”

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