PINA

At its best, the scheme changes lives – like an abattoir worker using savings to supply clean drinking water to his Vanuatu village. But exploitation remains rife.

By Peter Mares

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme (PALM) is a crucial source of workers across regional Australia. About 32,000 people from nine Pacific nations and Timor-Leste work in Australia under PALM.

Over seven months of researching the scheme – interviewing workers, employers, country liaison officers, trade union organisers, community volunteers and academics, as well as digging into the data on it – I didn’t encounter anyone who thought it was a bad idea.

But there were many calls for change to make it work better for everyone. My new report, published today, suggests where we could start.

Who benefits from PALM now?

PALM has short- and long-term streams. Under the short-term stream, operating since 2012, workers can stay for nine months to do seasonal jobs such as fruit picking.

The long-term stream, introduced in 2018, allows for a four-year stay. Most long-term workers are employed in meat processing.

PALM is widely credited with delivering a triple win.

The first win is for Pacific participants and their communities.

In 2024-25 PALM workers remitted AUD$450 million (US$313 million) to their home countries, an average of $1,500(US$1,044) each per person per month. The money bought food, paid school fees, upgraded housing and financed small enterprises.

Benefits flow beyond immediate families. After working in an Australian abattoir, Devid John Suma returned to Vanuatu and invested $30,000(US$20,898) to supply clean drinking water to his remote village.

The second win is for Australia’s economy. PALM workers make a significant contribution to regional businesses that struggle to attract local workers, from farms to abattoirs.

The third win is that PALM advances Australia’s strategic interests, not least by providing a counter to China’s wooing of Pacific nations.

Pacific leaders might wish for more aid from Canberra and be frustrated by the government’s tepid action on climate change. But well-paid work is something Australia offers that China does not.

Persistent problems

Yet the wins of the PALM scheme have countervailing costs in the pain of separated families, loneliness and broken marriages.

PALM is dogged by reports of workers being abused, underpaid or housed in substandard, overpriced or overcrowded accommodation.

Thousands of PALM workers have quit their approved jobs, “disengaging” from the scheme. This breaches their visa conditions and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.

Drifting from its original mission

PALM has profoundly changed migration between the Pacific and Australia.

It brings workers to Australia from countries that have seen minimal migration to Australia since Federation, despite their geographic proximity — particularly the Melanesian countries Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu that were sources of labour in the late 19th century, when indentured South Sea Islanders built Queensland’s plantation economy.

But the future of PALM is not guaranteed.

Some Pacific countries, including Papua New Guinea, would like more of their nationals engaged under the scheme, while others worry it creates workforce shortages and disrupts community life.

Participation peaked at 34,830 workers in September 2023 and was at 32,365 in November 2025. Numbers in the long-term stream are steady, but fewer short-term workers are being recruited as employers revert to using backpackers — a cheaper, less regulated workforce — for seasonal jobs.

So, PALM has drifted from its original mission of filling seasonal gaps in the rural economy through annual circular migration, to become a labour program for sectors like meat processing and aged care with a constant demand for workers.

In April 2022, three-quarters of all PALM workers were in the short-term stream, and a quarter were long-term. Now, more than half of all PALM workers hold long-term visas.

How to make the scheme work better

The PALM scheme changes lives and communities in the Pacific and Australia, often for the better. But its problems must be addressed to realise its potential.

Australian employers will turn away from a scheme that is too bureaucratic, expensive or cumbersome. PALM’s future won’t be secured by burying it under layers of rules and reporting.

My report has ten recommendations to improve PALM. These include:

*Making it easier for PALM workers to change jobs, rather than tying them to a single employer
*Simplifying PALM scheme rules for employers
*Regulating labour hire at the national level
*Giving workers access to Medicare while they’re in Australia to stop them missing out on medical attention
and reforming working holiday programs by phasing out the second and third visas offered to backpackers who do work like fruit picking in regional areas.

Australia’s interest in fostering Pacific development and rivalry with China are added reasons to limiting working holidays and expanding the PALM scheme instead.

PALM is a work in progress and will never be perfect. The scheme is shaped by the power differential between Australia and its Pacific partners. And there are tensions between three priorities: being a development program enhancing Pacific wellbeing, being a labour market program benefiting Australia’s economy, and serving a strategic purpose in Australia’s rivalry with China.

Yet when it operates well, PALM is far more than transactional.

Beyond wages earned, jobs filled and diplomatic points scored, it also fosters cultural exchange and personal engagement, binding the peoples of Australia and the region more fully into a “Pacific family”.

Wetlands are often described as nature’s quiet workhorses, filtering water, protecting coastlines, and sustaining life.

For communities across Fiji, they are also places of memory, identity, and survival, woven deeply into traditional knowledge passed down through generations.

Each year on 02 February, World Wetlands Day is observed globally to highlight the critical role wetlands play for both ecosystems and people.

This year’s theme, “Wetlands and Traditional Knowledge: Celebrating Cultural Heritage,” explores how Indigenous knowledge systems have long guided the protection and sustainable use of these landscapes.

In Nabukelevu Village, Serua, the message resonated strongly as Fiji’s Minister for Information, Environment and Climate Change, Lynda Tabuya, marked the occasion by emphasising that safeguarding wetlands begins at the community level.

“The protection of wetlands will not be won by policies, workshops or government action alone, but through villages, yavusa meetings, and the daily choices of resource owners,”Tabuya said.
She said healthy wetlands are inseparable from resilient communities.

“When wetlands are healthy, communities are resilient. When wetlands are protected, Fiji is protected,” Tabuya said.

“Our duty is simple, and heavy: To leave abundance behind for the next generation.”

Fiji’s commitment to wetland protection is reflected in its two designated Wetlands of International Importance, also known as Ramsar Sites, places where conservation, culture, and livelihoods intersect.

The story of the Upper Navua Conservation Area (UNCA) begins not with policy, but with discovery. Located in Serua Province on the south-central coast of Viti Levu, the area first drew attention in 1997 after a kayaking expedition revealed a river system of striking beauty and largely untouched wilderness. According to the Rivers Fiji website, this discovery led to the establishment of Rivers Fiji and sparked a movement to protect what many recognised as a national treasure.

Framed by towering canyon walls, cascading waterfalls, and thriving wildlife, the Upper Navua Gorge was quickly understood to be a place of exceptional ecological value. Yet preserving it required overcoming significant challenges. Logging and gravel extraction had to be halted, and support had to be secured from nine indigenous landowning clans (mataqali), alongside approvals from the Native Land Trust Board and the Great Council of Chiefs.

The solution lay in replacing destructive practices with conservation-driven livelihoods, supported by low-impact whitewater tourism. Through collaboration between landowners, traditional leaders, conservation partners, and government agencies, Fiji’s first fully protected, tourism-funded conservation area was born.

These collective efforts led to a major milestone in 2006. With backing from the University of the South Pacific, WWF, and government stakeholders, the Upper Navua Conservation Area was officially designated a Ramsar Site on 11 April, making Fiji the 152nd party to the Ramsar Convention.

Today, UNCA stands as a living example of how traditional stewardship and modern conservation approaches can work hand in hand. Home to rare and endemic species, the site continues to demonstrate that protecting wetlands can also support sustainable livelihoods and cultural continuity.

More than a decade later, Fiji expanded its Ramsar network with the designation of Qoliqoli Cokovata on 16 January 2018. Stretching along the north coast of Vanua Levu, the site encompasses vast fishing grounds, coral reefs, lagoons, and mangroves that have sustained coastal communities for generations.

Its extensive barrier reef system spans approximately 260 kilometres, making it the third-largest continuous barrier reef system in the world. As the most biologically rich area of the Great Sea Reef, Qoliqoli Cokovata is globally significant, supporting an extraordinary diversity of marine life while underpinning food security and income for local communities who retain custodial ownership of the fishing grounds.

The interconnected habitats of coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves provide essential feeding, breeding, and nesting areas for threatened turtle species, including hawksbill,green, leatherback, and loggerhead turtles. The waters are also home to vulnerable fish species such as giant grouper, humphead wrasse, and humphead parrotfish.

Seagrass beds and mangroves play a critical role as nurseries for fish, shellfish, and sea cucumbers, species that are vital to both subsistence fishing and the national economy. Yet these ecosystems are increasingly under pressure from pollution and wastewater linked to nearby settlements and sugarcane farming.

In response, traditional owners have established the Qoliqoli Cokovata Management Committee, a community-led body tasked with managing and caring for the site, ensuring decisions reflect both environmental priorities and cultural responsibilities.

Against the growing impacts of climate change, Tabuya said wetlands remain among Fiji’s strongest natural allies, describing them as a “lifeline”.

“Mangroves reduce storm surges. Wetlands absorb flood waters. They protect villages during cyclones and heavy rain. Wetlands are also powerful carbon sinks,” Tabuya said.

She said long before climate science confirmed these benefits, Pacific ancestors already understood their value.

“Without knowing the science, our ancestors were already protecting one of the world’s greatest climate solutions.

“For too long, wetlands have been misunderstood. Our ancestors knew better. What science proves today; traditional knowledge has always known. Wetlands are lifelines,” she said.