The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (PALM) has been lauded by both sides of politics as a “win win” for the islanders who come here and the Australians who use their services.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs has even labelled it a “triple win”, for the workers, their hosts and for their home nations who receive remittances.

But beneath the surface serious questions are being asked about the safety of workers denied the right to leave their employers.

A report by the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner entitled Be Our Guests has identified signs of debt bondage, deceptive recruiting, forced labour and, in extreme cases, servitude, sexual servitude and human trafficking.

The NSW parliament has launched its own inquiry into the risks faced by migrant workers in response and is seeking submissions.

Employment Minister Murray Watt this month signalled changes, saying there had been “far too many abuses of the PALM scheme”.

PALM allows rural and regional employers to hire workers from nine Pacific nations and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available.

Unplanned pregnancies, sleeping rough

The workers hired do not have the right to change employers while in Australia, even for contracts of up to four years, except via a request from their original employer or a direction from the Department of Employment.

This means workers who abandon their employers for reasons including underpayment of wages, excessive deductions and overcharging for accommodation become absconders and lose their rights.

The NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner says there are several thousand absconded PALM workers in Australia, without access to health insurance and formal income. Among them are women with unplanned pregnancies denied antenatal care due to ineligibility for Medicare.

The Commissioner says crisis accommodation services in the NSW Riverina report having exhausted all available resources, including tents, for PALM workers who have left their employers and are sleeping rough.

Australia had 30,805 PALM workers at the end of August, one-third of them (11,420) in Queensland. Most work in farming (52%) and 39% in meat processing. The accommodation and care industries between them account for 6%.

For many of these workers, the income is life-changing. An I-Kiribati worker I interviewed recently told me she makes more money cleaning hotel rooms in Queensland than is paid to the president of her country.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says between July 2018 to October 2022 PALM workers sent home a total of A$184 million, but their employers made profits of $289 million and charged them a further $74 million in rent.

Unable to switch employers, their bargaining power is weak.

An estimated 45 workers on the PALM scheme died between June 2022 and June 2023. Nineteen deaths remain under investigation.

After a Fijian abattoir worker died of a brain tumour in June, Fiji raised with Australia claims of racism, bullying, excessive workloads, unfair termination and unsafe working conditions under the program.

Minimum pay, but no right to move

Reforms introduced last year guaranteed PALM workers a minimum of 30 hours per week and a minimum weekly take-home pay (after deductions) of $200.

But until PALM workers are able to move freely between approved employers they will remain at risk of what the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Michele O'Neil calls modern-day slavery.

O'Neil wants the government to blacklist bad employers and identify ethical ones in consultation with unions and civil society organisations. But she says until PALM workers can move, they risk being treated as disposable labour.

Many employers treat their PALM workers well, but the current design of the scheme leaves that outcome to chance, and leaves badly-treated workers trapped.

It’s time to give them the same sort of right to move between employers as the rest of us.