‘New Zealand has displayed greater trust in its long and friendly links with the islands and islanders than Australia has, by announcing not just the scheme but also the numbers and the countries from which it will draw its first seasonal migrants'


An Australian study released just days before last month’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting said the country did not need seasonal migrant labour from Pacific islands countries. If that seemed like a dampener to the seasonal migration issue, it did not turn out that way, thanks to New Zealand’s announcement at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting that it would allow in 5000 seasonal workers from half a dozen islands nations into the country. This was one of the more encouraging outcomes of the Forum meeting and positive action on a World Bank report that had recommended seasonal labour migration as an important contributor to the growth of Pacific islands economies.

Though Australia is known to have severe shortages in its rural farming sector and has used several schemes with very limited success to temporarily employ itinerant workers, it has never wholeheartedly supported the idea of permitting Pacific islands labour to work in the country. The obvious worry has been the possibility of the temporary workers overstaying.

The fear of overstaying is the single most important factor that has deterred governments from embracing seasonal labour migration despite crippling labour shortages in vital sectors of their economies. Soon after New Zealand’s announcement, the government put out media releases explaining the scheme but concentrating for the most part on allaying fears on the overstaying problem.

The seasonal migrant labour’s contribution to the economy was dismissed in all but one short paragraph. The media releases went to great lengths explaining in detail how mechanisms were being built to discourage, if not prevent, overstaying. The onus has mainly been put on the employer.

Workers who return at the end of their work visas’ validity stand better chances of obtaining visas in subsequent seasons—a thing the government thinks will encourage workers to go back secure in the knowledge that they can always return to work next year.

New Zealand has displayed greater trust in its long and friendly links with the islands and islanders than Australia has, by announcing not just the scheme but also the numbers and the countries from which it will draw its first batch of seasonal migrant workers. Such a scheme, though on an experimental basis, is already in place in New Zealand.

But Australia has made a different announcement on the human resources front: its decision to build the $149 million Pacific Technical Training College, which has been in the offing for some time now. The college will train Pacific islanders in technical trades such as building, plumbing, carpentry, electrical and so forth.

Knowing full well that Australia has a growing shortage of such tradespersons, the move smacks of self-interest. What is to prevent Australia from employing the trainees straight after they finish their Australian-standard courses? That will only exacerbate the brain drain of skilled workers from the islands.

Supporters of the college say that even if the workers eventually end up in Australia, the islands will still benefit because of the remittances they will send back. But if the scheme is indeed meant to benefit the islands, both Australia and sponsoring Pacific islands governments must insist on a minimum period after training that the graduating candidates must commit to spend working in their home countries. Such an arrangement must be put in place well before the first enrolments begin. In the absence of such a rider, Australia’s move for the college will only be seen as a thinly disguised mechanism to siphon out talent from the islands.

As well as needing skilled workers, the islands have a considerable workforce of severely underemployed unskilled labour—something Australia could make ample use of, despite the study showing that it does not need labour from the Pacific islands. What it needs to display is a political will to employ them —just as New Zealand has—and a measure of trust in the islanders on the issue of overstaying. Surely, it could be tried out with a closely monitored pilot scheme.

A little trust can go a long way as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner has showed the world. Starting credit facilities without collateral securities thirty years ago for his poor and dispossessed countrymen who were refused credit by mainstream banks to start small businesses, his Grameen Bank today has a loan return rate in excess of 98 percent! That is a rate that commercial banks with all their systems and safeguards can only dream of. It is simple trust that has made Grameen Bank and the global micro-credit movement it spawned so successful today.

Reposing that kind of trust is sure to go a long way in smoothing Australia’s relationships with the islands.