“They don’t want to go home”: Pacific workers flee farmers in record numbers

Cracks have emerged in a visa scheme designed to bring seasonal workers into Australia from Pacific countries as it struggles to cope with a surge in arrivals.

A Pacific worker scheme designed to fix agriculture’s labour shortage is being used as a one-way ticket into Australia as workers flee their employers in record numbers, leaving farmers thousands of dollars out of pocket.

As many as one in five workers brought into Australia through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme – usually to pick and pack fruit or work in meat processing factories – are running off from their workplace, the Approved Employers Association says.

AEA chief executive Steve Burdette said 10-20 per cent of his members’ workers were absconding following the reopening of Australia’s international border last year.

“Pre-Covid, there was absconding but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now. Now the borders have reopened, the workers don’t necessarily want to go home and if that’s the case, they will abscond,” Mr Burdette said.

“It’s anything from 10 to 20 per cent. We have 35,000 workers in the country now, so that starts being a really relevant number.”

The federal Labor government has invested in a seasonal worker scheme recruiting from Pacific countries to fix agriculture’s labour shortage. Picture: Mark Stewart

Agricultural and some regional and rural businesses are eligible to recruit workers from nine Pacific Islands and Timore Leste for seasonal work in unskilled, low and semi-skilled positions through the PALM scheme.

To do so they must qualify as an approved employer, which requires they provide suitable accommodation, pastoral care, health insurance, and organise and pay for their workers’ travel costs to and from Australia.

The workers are only allowed to work for their approved employer for the term of their stay in the country.

A number of employers alleged that workers typically fled to work for cash in Sunraysia, Griffith or Gatton, where they applied for a protection visa. It is alleged they then wait to be issued a bridging visa before re-entering the workforce with legal working rights and access to Medicare.

Mr Burdette said the PALM scheme was being used as a loophole to stay in the country for as long as five years, which was how long it could take for a visa to be decided.

Lawrie Brown, who co-owns labour hire company Top of the Crop, said he had about 100 workers flee last year, accounting for about 10 per cent of his workforce.

“A lot of farmers are thinking of pulling out (of the PALM scheme) because it’s too expensive,” he said, referring to the cost of being an approved employer and the losses incurred when workers fled.

Tasmanian berry farmer Robin Dornauf, of Hillwood Berries, said his business had between 10 and 15 workers abscond in the past year.

“Ten to 15 out of 500 isn’t a huge amount but it's a cost and it’s frustrating, as well as all the work that goes into bringing them into the country,” Mr Dornauf said. “Right around the country people are experiencing it.”

“We’re quite concerned about it for the long term,” he said, adding he wanted the federal government to expedite the processing of protection visas for the trend to stop.

There were a record number of temporary visa holders in the country as of late last year, according to Department of Home Affairs figures.

This includes double the number of bridging visa holders, from 179,921 in June 2019 to 357,743 in October last year, and almost double the number of temporary protection and temporary resident visa holders compared with three years ago.

The number of bridging visa holders has since dropped to 203,494 as of the end of December.

Workers arrive from the Solomon Islands to start seasonal farm work in Queensland.

The issue is not confined to the horticulture industry, with one of Australia’s largest meat processors forced last year to raise its pay rates above that of its competitors to curb the number of runaway PALM workers.

A spokesman for the company, which did not want to be identified, said: “We understand absconding is still a significant issues for a number if employers”.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Daniel Walton said the issue wasn’t that PALM workers were leaving too often, but that “far too many are being forced to stay with bad bosses”.

“The PALM scheme as it stands is very restrictive and most PALM workers feel an obligation to stay put and continue to send money home even if and when working conditions and pay are subpar … If PALM workers are leaving in numbers it’s because they are desperate,” he said.

The federal government is reassessing future delivery of the PALM scheme.

In October, it backflipped on its election commitment to pay for PALM workers’ travel costs. It said $67.5 million would be spent over the next four years to expand the scheme in place of the axed Australian Agriculture Visa. Some of that funding would instead underwrite employers’ upfront travel costs that couldn’t be recouped from workers.

A Department of Employment and Workplace Relations spokesman said no records were kept of the number of absconding workers, but since April 2021 more than 11,500 inquiries from workers and employers have been fielded by government-run PALM support channels, which include a 24-hour support line and an email inbox.

In December, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said there were the highest numbers of PALM workers in the country, with more than 33,700 working in Australia. That number has since climbed to more than 35,000, up from 8000 in March 2020.

The expansion hasn’t been entirely welcomed by the National Farmers’ Federation, which has “serious concerns” for the future of the scheme.

“Disengagement by workers leaves farmers in the lurch, as they’re left to bear thousands in travel costs and without the workforce needed to complete their season,” NFF chief executive Tony Mahar said.

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