Comments

Many thanks to the authors for highlighting Colin's amazing contributions to the Pacific. Colin was a beacon of humour, integrity, commonsense and technical excellence. Most of all, I admired his resilience and passion. Colin, we miss you, but your legacies continue to positively impact the lives of many.

EDUCATED!? You call that education? the school system is indoctrinating students and making them believe that if they don't pass a useless standardized test they have no value. FOR 8 HOURS they tell them what to think and force-feed them these lies. They condition them rather than teach them, heck they tell them to raise a hand if they wanna even speak. They take away creativity, individuality, and critical thinking no matter what they try and tell you and you call that EDUCATION!? I know what I'm talking about because I'm a student myself and I see it all the time. A chosen few of us have the guts to fight against the system and I happen to be one of them.

The person is right. school is a complete waste of time.

Bal. A census covers everyone and a sample covers some share of that population, with a few to shine some light on the characteristics of the population. A census on this matter does not exist and we conducted a survey. Indeed, a census on them would be a waste of valuable time and money and add little value beyond our extensive survey. All potential steps were taken to make the sample as representative as possible, and this naturally becomes more the case as that gets bigger. Bespoke microeconomic surveys often might cover just a few hundred, not thousands, which is more the realm of official surveys like the HIES. However, here, we are closer to those than a small survey. Calling academics whose conclusions (here, facts, hard data) you don't agree with "irresponsible" because you don't understand the methods is incredibly poor practice, and usually an indication to not be taken seriously. Best, Ryan

Interesting to see the conclusion here that workers get more than 30 hours, a conclusion based on the survey of a limited pool. As the paper admits, “These numbers are based on the 1,407 PALM workers who were asked in the Pacific Labour Mobility Survey”. Of the roughly 35000 PALM workers, that’s approx 4%. To make a conclusion as such based on that portion of surveyed workers is somewhat irresponsible as to the question of “how many minimum hours the workers get”.

Totally agree Stephen. The overtones are cringe worthy - actually worse. Some of the appalling behaviour in lead up to the recent referendum and result has only served to highlight the Australian psyche when it comes to Pacific peoples. "Not over here thank you." The first thing our representatives should do is drop the "Pacific Family" and "our back yard" monikers. Both are cringeworthy, paternalistic and in light of recent events seen for what they really are by Pacific people. One step forwards, two backwards.

Dear Robin, thank you for sharing your views on this topic – really insightful! I think it would be interesting to take a closer look at the examples you mentioned. Best Stephen

Looking forward to applying in 2024

The concept of Global Public Investment is certainly less useful than sometimes advertised as an alternative or successor to the concept of Official Development Assistance. And it works better as an abstract category of international financing than it does as a rallying point for resource mobilisation. But GPI need not be and is not always presented as a replacement for ODA; it is sometimes proposed as a complement, with an additionality stipulation. And the requirement for all countries to contribute is separable from the core concept, as we see in the case of various global environment funds. GPI suffers from being neither chicken nor egg: the global institutions we have for financing global public goods are almost entirely ODA-funded, which means they are obliged to operate only for the benefit of developing countries and spread their resources more or less according to equitable allocation criteria that work against global impact. For this reason, nobody has yet been able to build an institution that is big enough to fight a global public bad, expert and inclusive enough to win broad-based trust, yet hard-nosed enough to put its money exactly where it will achieve the greatest impact for the world as a whole. The new, smaller-than-hoped Pandemic Fund is built along the same lines as many previous climate and health financing vehicles. The formerly ODA-dependent Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is a notable exception in that it raised a lot of non-ODA funding to support pandemic vaccine development. However, it took a once-in-a-century pandemic to deliver that funding surge, and a GPI-funded institution needs a flow rather than a surge. Governments will need to be sure their global institutions can use GPI well, and they will never be sure until somebody builds and operates one. But with only ODA to deploy, it’s hard to see that happening — as the Pandemic Fund experience shows. Catch-22.

While we highly appreciate the endorsement announcement by the Australian Senate, we are concerned that the final rollout stages may take a considerable amount of time.

Thank Australia for open this doors of opportunity for us the Pacific family to work an live there support our family, when will the visa be commencing, please update.

Hi Tomasi, thank you for your comment. Applications for the Pacific Engagement Visa are not yet open. Applications for the ballot will be able to be lodged online with the Department of Home Affairs once the ballot opens, so please continue to check their website. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/