Tongan delegates participate in Pacific Labour Mobility Annual Meeting Featured
15 October, 2018. Tongan officials participated in the Pacific Labour Mobility Annual Meeting held in Honiara, Solomon Islands, last week. Labour mobility, where Pacific workers travel to Australia and New Zealand to fill critical labour shortages, is transforming both sending and receiving countries.
The Tongan delegation was led by the CEO for Labour, Commerce and Industries, Edgar Cocker, and included representatives from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Consumer, Trade, Innovation and Labour, Tonga Development Bank, and the Australian High Commission in Tonga.
It was the first time the annual meeting had been hosted by a Pacific island nation.
Over three days, more than 150 delegates, including senior officials, employers of seasonal workers in New Zealand and Australia, employee agents, media and academics, considered how the region can work together to maximise the benefits of labour mobility programs.
The meeting was opened by the Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Rick Houenipwela, who mapped out an ambitious agenda for labour mobility across the region.
He said Solomon Islands wanted to work with all Pacific island countries to increase participation in labour mobility programs “for the benefit of current and future generations of our people, our countries and our region.”
Professor Richard Curtain from the Australian National University presented on potential growth in labour mobility programs.
Dr Curtain highlighted the growth of the number of Pacific workers travelling to Australia and New Zealand over the past five years.
If sending and receiving countries improved efforts to identify, select, mobilise and receive workers, further rapid growth in participation could be realised, he said.
‘Alisi Holani from the Tongan Ministry of Commerce, Consumer, Trade, Innovation & Labour presented on Tonga’s long-term strategy to increase its participation in labour mobility programs while effectively managing development outcomes and social impacts.
Leta Havea Kami from the Tonga Development Bank presented on ‘Ave Pa’anga Pau, a secure, low-cost solution developed by the bank for sending remittances to Tonga from overseas.
More than 20,000 Tongans have participated in the Australian Seasonal Workers Programme and the New Zealand Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme over the past decade.
Participants in the Seasonal Worker Programme have contributed an estimated AUD100 million to the Tongan economy and brought home an average of AUD10,470 per season in savings and remittances.
Almost 3000 Tongan workers participated in the Seasonal Worker Programme in the last year alone.
In addition to the Seasonal Worker Programme, which continues to attract Pacific workers to seasonal positions in the Australian agriculture industry, Australia’s new Pacific Labour Scheme began operating on 1 July, 2018.
Under this new scheme, Pacific temporary workers will have access to 3-year visas to work in a variety of Australian industries experiencing labour shortages, including hospitality, tourism and aged care.
Tonga is expected to join the Pacific Labour Scheme soon, opening up further opportunities for Tongans to earn income through temporary work in Australia.
1 comment
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This should've been done way back , not just now . There was a time when Pacific island countries were scraping a living from copra and banana export , because none of the big nations took the time to consider the need of their smaller neighbors , but now that China stepped in and offer unlimited AID loans , everyone's woken up , but the bamboo curtain already drawn , which is good in that the big nations have now opened many doors that were not previously available to the small island countries before . This work scheme should have been in effect way back , but as the saying goes " better late than never ".