Farmers grow tired of Pacific Islander worker visa scheme

A growing number of Pacific Islanders are abandoning a key Labor agricultural worker scheme and seeking temporary protection in Australia.

Farm manager Sally Jolly and worker Keleto Turaganiqali Naituku at her Smart Berries operation in Mundubbera, Queensland.

A growing number of Pacific ­Islanders are abandoning a key agricultural worker scheme and seeking asylum in Australia, as farmers warn the program addressing workforce shortages ­was being undermined by Labor’s pro-union rule changes.

The peak farmers body warned employers were being short-changed when workers left the Pacific Australia Labour ­Mobility scheme and sought asylum, while agricultural businesses were considering leaving the program because they were now required to pay each worker at least 30 hours a week even if there was a downturn in production.

In the past six months, more than 1050 Pacific Islanders defected from the PALM scheme and applied for permanent protection visas. This is on track to overtake 1698 permanent visa applications from Pacific Island workers in 2022-23 – the first full year PALM was operating after the consolidation of the Pacific Labour Scheme and the Seasonal Worker Program.

Under PALM, regional and rural businesses can hire workers from nine Pacific Island countries and East Timor for up to four years when there are local workforce shortages.

Obtaining a protection visa would give the Pacific Islanders unrestricted work rights and some social security benefits.

There were 1002 Pacific Island farm workers who applied for asylum in 2021-22 and just 171 in 2019-20, according to figures from the Department of Home Affairs.

National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said PALM workers leaving farm employers was “one of the biggest challenges” facing the program.

He said each defection left farmers in the lurch as they were “left to bear thousands in upfront recruitment costs and without the workforce needed to complete their season”.

“More needs to be done by government to ensure both workers and non-approved employers understand the rules around job switching for Pacific workers,” he said. “We need to see penalties enforced against non-approved employers who illegally lure Pacific workers away from their workplaces.

“As the number of workers under the PALM scheme increases, we’re also seeing an increase in applications for protection visas.

“Given only a small number of these applications are approved, the government may need to consider proactive measures to inform workers of the requirements for seeking asylum.”

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the government’s $160m package to expedite asylum claims would “break the business model of unscrupulous actors who seek to exploit the ­system”.

“The mess Peter Dutton made of our protection system will take time to fix,” he said.

“But as a result of these investments, those in need of Australia’s protection will be provided certainty about their future sooner and those who are seeking to exploit the system and are applying simply to extend their stay in Australia will be swiftly refused.

“The PALM scheme remains integral to Australia’s migration system, helping to fill workforce shortages in regional Australia, and strengthening our connections with the Pacific.”

While workers are abandoning the PALM scheme, farmers are also considering leaving the program due to a new rule requiring workers under the scheme to be employed for at least 30 hours a week.

Smart Berries manager and agronomist Sally Jolly said the blueberry farm – which is based in Mundubbera more than two hours drive inland from Bundaberg and employed 350 PALM workers last year – was considering pulling out of the scheme due to the expense of meeting the 30-hour requirement. Ms Jolly said the changes meant farmers would lose out because prices had been agreed with the supermarkets.

“We’ve got weather that affects our working week and if we can’t work in the field, which most of our work is done in the field, especially for the PALM workers, it just can’t be done,” she said.

“The way it was where we had that 30 hours over six or eight weeks so it could average over that period was OK, but a flat minimum of 30 hours (every week) is quite difficult.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the 30 hours requirement would force farmers to “pay people to lie on the couch and do nothing” when the weather was too poor to work.

He said it would ultimately reduce the agricultural workforce and increase the price of food.

“Economics tells them they probably won’t plant the crop because they can’t afford to do that,” he said. “There were sensible provisions around averaging that allowed for the weather and for these workers to catch up when it stopped raining and things have dried out – that’s common sense.

“These changes have been driven by Labor and the unions … by ideology and not understanding the practical reality of what this will do.

“If you reduce supply, then ultimately what’s going to happen is everyone’s prices go up.”

Quebec Citrus Australia director Ainsley Emmerton said she was growing increasingly frustrated with the highly bureaucratic scheme and was weighing up if she should walk away.

“My husband just said to me this morning, ‘it’s just so hard’ because of having to deal with the elements like rain, it’s been a very wet week,” she said. “But when this 30-hour week comes in we’ve got to pay all the PALM workers 30 hours for no work, and that’s not our fault, because it’s raining we’re not going to send them out in the wet, so we’re going to get no economic benefit.”

Farmers were required to offer PALM workers at least 30 hours a week averaged over four weeks from New Year’s Day and 30 hours each week from July 1.

Former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration Abul Rizvi said he didn’t believe the visa design had been “well thought through” and it had been marred by issues affecting many farm visa schemes, including allegations of exploitation.

Dr Rizvi said there was also a broader uptick in Pacific Islanders applying for asylum in Australia with more than 9000 people applying for protection visas since 2019, with most of the claims being rejected.

“People are just being stuck basically in what is best described as immigration limbo because they don’t want to go home and they can’t find a pathway to remain here permanently,” he said.