South Sea Islanders call on Australian Government to help them

Trapped and terrified farm workers who claim to have been lured to Australia with false promises have shared shocking details of their treatment here, and are now pleading with the Federal Government to help them. Here’s the latest.

“John” was looking forward to coming to Australia to help support his daughter through university.

The promise of better work and better pay meant John could help her as she earned her nursing degree in Vanuatu.

By sending money home every week, his daughter would be able to pay for schooling, food and supplies.

Little did he know that the money and work did not turn out the way he had been promised.

John is one of many farm workers across Australia who left their family and friends behind in Vanuatu in pursuit of a better life in Queensland.

Unlike the outright kidnapping of Pacific Islander workers, which happened throughout the dark days of blackbirding in the late 1800s, Islanders volunteered for service and say they were promised the earth - until their plane landed in Australia.

A group of workers claim Greedy, non-approved contractors using the Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme as a money grab, allegedly asked workers to read and sign contracts in english without support from an interpreter.

Bundaberg-based South Sea Islander farm workers have called on the Australian Government to give them the freedom to chase seasonal work and to stop using the word "absconding" when they choose to do so. Their faces have been blurred to protect their identities for fear of backlash.

Once their contract was signed, they say breaching it became too easy.

If a contractor placed a worker on a farm where that worker felt they were being treated poorly, it was almost impossible for them to leave without “breaching” their contract and “absconding”.

The workers would then not be allowed to go home and come back, either, with the threat of being blacklisted by their own government in Vanuatu if they returned home while on a contract.

John said the contracts left them on piece rates instead of an hourly award rate.

“We do not have enough money to provide for our families,” he said.

The workers also lost simple freedoms like being able to leave their accommodation to go out when they wanted to.

South Sea Islanders plea for help from the Department of Employment during a visit to a Bundaberg motel in June 2022.

John’s employer only allowed them out at night “sometimes”, he said.

“It’s scary because we don’t have freedom of choice, [there are] strict rules. I like Bundaberg, but it’ll be good to get a good farm.

“We feel comfortable in Bundaberg because our great great grandfathers have been here and they’re here in [our] heart.”

Pako, who is educated in law and education through a Vanuatu university, is another worker who gave up on work after not getting what he was promised.

He said he desperately wanted to find work, but was not given the same freedoms as backpackers. Moving to another state to chase seasonal work would be “absconding” in the eyes of the government.

“The word ‘absconders’ is the word they give to the prisoners when they escape prisons,” Pako said.

“But we are not prisoners. We come here to work for our families.

“Even if we ‘abscond’, we will [still] make money and we [will] pay the tax.”

Pako said South Sea Islanders were lured into working in Australia, even when there was no work available.

He said he knew people who had run away in fear they would not get enough work to keep them alive.

“We don’t come in the right season for picking, it’s a disgrace. So all of the people not making money are absconding,” he said.

More than 50 South Sea Islander workers met with the Department of Employment in Bundaberg to speak about their treatment while on the Seasonal Worker Program and PALM scheme.

“People are scared.”

Workers are also allegedly promised health insurance, with premiums allegedly deducted from their pays.

Pako said he had tried to help friends get treatment at Bundaberg Hospital, but they were forced to pay.

“When my friend [is] sick, we have to go to the hospital and use our own pocket money,” he said.

“Every week we check the payslip, they deduct insurance but when we go to the hospital, the card they use to give us, no money [is] inside.”

John said he was sick of hearing the word “absconding” to describe people who left a region to go elsewhere for work.

“Stop using [the word] ‘absconding’. It’s destroying our freedom here.”

Alan, who works for a Bundaberg area farmer, said the farmer’s pastoral carer told him he was not allowed to live with his wife in the same home on the farm property for “religious reasons”.

“He said we needed [a] marriage certificate,” Alan said.

“I told the pastoral carer ‘this is sh--’.

“Back in my place in Vanuatu, we have already lived [together] for over eight years.”

That was not the worst thing he’d experienced while working in Bundaberg, he said.

Ni'Vanuatu worker Alan overlooks Bundaberg from The Hummock. Alan said he had been treated badly by a farmer and contractor and had seen people "run away" from Bundaberg.

When Alan hurt his back and finger, he was told he would not be given treatment or WorkCover.

Now, one of his fingers permanently bends forward.

“They didn’t take me to the hospital,” he said.

Alan said his supervisor, who was also from Vanuatu, feared the conditions and their employer so much that he ran away, and no one was surprised.

“He just left, he absconded, he ran away,” he said.

Alan said he believed South Sea Islanders were treated poorly by contractors and farmers because of the colour of their skin and Queensland’s history of blackbirding.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, everyone is the same,” he said.

“Maybe [because] our skin’s black, it’s based on racism. Our fathers they come here [and] they were slaves, so that’s why they want to treat us [the] same.

“We are not robots. The government treat me like a robot, I can’t do anything.”

Pako, John and Alan are part of the wider Bundaberg South Sea Islander community calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Federal Government to make changes to legislation to protect workers’ freedom.

“They need to change these things to make us equal to the rest,” John said.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations told the NewsMail workers would be contacted to try to re-engage them into the PALM scheme.

DESE told the NewsMail they would be helping 24 disengaged workers to get back onto the PALM Scheme following a hushed meeting in Bundaberg, but more than 50 workers showed up to the meeting.

“Over three days, 26, 27 and 28 June 2022, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations officials met with 24 Pacific Islanders who had disengaged from the PALM in the Bundaberg region to discuss their individual circumstances,” a DESE spokesperson said.

“The department is presently working with the Department of Home Affairs to re-engage these workers into the PALM scheme if their agreements and visa statuses allow. Each worker will be contacted individually over the coming week.

“These are matters the department takes seriously. It is not appropriate for the department to comment regarding allegations that may be referred to border officials, or regarding an individual’s specific circumstances.”

There were more than 50 workers seeking urgent assistance at the June meeting with DESE in Bundaberg.