Comments

Thank you for your response to our blog on the employment impact of the Pacific labour mobility programs. As we state in the blog, we are presenting evidence ‘to gauge the impact of these programs’. We do this by comparing the number of workers employed under these programs in both Australia and New Zealand with three benchmarks. These are the number of males and females of working age population of ten sending countries and the number of workers in government employment in three major sending countries: Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga. We conclude that these Pacific labour mobility programs on these three measures in terms of employment have had a major impact. Our purpose was not to look at other measures of success. One obvious measure is the large number of people on this programs, showing by their participation that they want to take up these jobs. This vote of confidence is reinforced by the high return rate (74 per cent) of workers on seasonal work programs. Other measures of benefits have been covered in independent surveys, most recently in 2018 by the World Bank in its report 'Maximizing the Development Impacts from Temporary Migration'. The current Pacific Labour Mobility Survey, which is being conducted by Devpolicy at ANU and the World Bank, is assessing the benefits and impact of workers in the SWP, RSE and the PLS. These net benefits including income gains, welfare and other social outcomes are being measured by comparing migrants with a control group of non-migrants, their households and communities in Tonga, Kiribati and Vanuatu. Preliminary results based on data collected November 2021 to January 2022 showed that Tongan migrants still achieve large earnings gains from working in Australia or New Zealand. Gains appear larger for the SWP than the PLS, and for migrants to Australia compared with New Zealand. Also remittance levels remain an important source of income for sending households, covering mostly basic expenses and education. Yes, more needs to be done to report on the nature and extent of any harmful effects. Two recent Devpolicy blogs deal with the social effects of Pacific labour mobility: Matt Withers on Pacific migrant workers and the social costs of family separation (https://devpolicy.org/pacific-migrant-workers-and-family-separation-20220816/) and Charlotte Bedford, Richard Bedford and Rena Tekanene on i-Kiribati female seasonal workers in New Zealand: lived experiences (https://devpolicy.org/i-kiribati-female-seasonal-workers-in-new-zealand-lived-experiences-20210901/). My three forthcoming blogs on brain drain and related matters also address other side effects of increased overseas labour mobility.

Hi Daniel, the best way to hear about Devpolicy seminars is to sign up to our mailing list: https://devpolicy.org/join-us/

When was corruption started and practised through the parilament then all sectors?

The argument that this labour mobility scheme has benefitted the Pacific Island countries greatly needs to be assessed properly. What indices are taken to define the success of these schemes? Loss of labour force for local economic activities that keep purchasing power within the country is badly affected, social issues related to absence of partners for lengthy duration, domestic violence, labour abuse in recipient countries, lack of transparency on actual income and net benefit flows etc. What is needed is a regionally based study on the benefits of regional labour schemes and a pathway forward that would be beneficial for sending and recipient countries. For too long we have been led to believe that economic benefits outweigh the social and environment costs. Let's be more discerning after more than a decade of unregulated access to a labour market in the Pacific region.

Hi Graham, Thank you for your comment. We didn't appraise the quality of individual projects and so are not in a position to comment on their merits or lack of. We assessed the share of projects that met reasonable standards of transparency. "Reasonable transparency" was defined as: the project being listed on the aid program website; the project having basic information on the website; the project having detailed project documentation online and accessible from the aid program website. In the case of the project you mentioned, from looking quickly at our data set, which is online (linked to from the report), all of its basic project information is online. However, the only detailed project documents online (at the time when we conducted the audit) were basic planning documents. The project was good in some aspects of transparency, but poor in important areas. Kind regards Terence

I wonder if you looked at the PATH project in PNG. The stated objective is about transitioning to a better model of funding support to PNG's health development after years of high-level funding but poor outcomes. I think that objective has been lost sight of and PATH has reverted to 'just implementation' of existing Abt projects. I haven't seen anything on how that funding transition objective is being managed - have you?

It so biased to talk about the Russian imperialism, when Russia by far has never invaded in such a outrageous way as Americans and Europeans have done, not mentioning that the US launched two atomic bombs. Only the zombies of the Western propaganda (media, think tanks and universities) can believe that Russia is a worse enemy for humanity than the US.

Please register me for any of your seminars.

I can't respond directly under your last comment for some reason, Alex, so I'll do so here. Lots of big ideas! If you want to go down another rabbit hole, check out Georgism. Here are some good links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty I hope to write about this and other topics for this blog. I also plan to start a Substack at some point, but I'm not sure when. I'll keep you posted!

Wow, thanks for the link, this looks super interesting. Anything else on "big ideas for big problems" you would like to share? Do you have a personal blog (substack?) or some other place where I can follow your work?

An excellent analysis of evolution of Solomon Isl. I agree with all variables identified that contributed to the birth of new Solomon Islands.

Perhaps something like this: https://uoa-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/wasi131_uoa_auckland_ac_nz/EaUByBDbSShBlxCq8guNqJ8BWtZyNjvmTL7uF56PifW22g?e=kbCr3T