Comments

Thanks so much, Graham! What a great little nugget of history. The Acripole sounds like a great setting for a Graham Greene story! Glad you enjoyed the piece; it's a wonderful book

Hi Mark, Thanks for your comment. My blog wasn't about the problem of absconding in general, but about applications for protection visas as a subset of that more general problem. Your suggestions will help with reducing the total number of absconding workers, but unless protection visa applications are processed more quickly, there will be a strong incentive for workers to apply for protection to get the multi-year, unrestricted working rights and Medicare that typically flow from such an application. We see this happening across the labour force, not only in the SWP and PLS. Even with borders closed, there are about 1,000 applications a month for asylum, with a grant rate of less than 10%, and much less for most nationalities. Regards, Stephen.

In my opinion this article has hit the nail on the head and finally some alternate view which is far closer to my experiences. What many media, politicians, members of the public don’t seem to understand is that a lot of seasonal worker see absconding as a general option to extend their stay in Australia. Throughout the years of working with seasonal workers I have been fortunate not to have too many experiences with absconding. However of the employees who have absconded most were poorly behaved outside of work, drinking alcohol excessively and had poor attendance. Two seasonal workers (employed through labour hire) were from Timor Leste and were returning workers of three years. When they were at my business they were employed on a five month placement each time and would work a minimum of 38 hours five to six days a week during this placement. When I got information that they were considering absconding I strongly discouraged them from doing so. At the time they informed that it would be better for them to claim asylum and be in Australia for five straight years rather then keep coming back and forth on individual placements. I also had two Solomon Island workers this season abscond within two days of arriving in Australia. This was before they even stepped one foot on my business. Another year I had 14 Vanuatu workers employed under labour hire all abscond during our harvesting season. At this time, which was before COVID 19, they were averaging nothing short of 45 hours per week, hourly paid work. Each one of the workers failed to turn up to work on a regular basis. When they did, they strongly smelt of alcohol. Finally before they absconded they smashed up their accommodation. It is all too easy just to continually blame the farmer for seasonal workers bad behaviour and absconding. It must be noted that many seasonal workers entered the country with bad and selfish intentions. Until the Australian government closers this massive loop hole of handing out bridging visas for protection with work rights the problem will only increase not decrease, particularly when the new agri visa comes into action. Like i said earlier my experiences for most part in the program have been massively positive. I now have a core group of seasonal workers who are highly trained and skilled employees. Each have used the money earned from their hard work to build houses and start business in their own country. I am a huge believer in the program and proud to be part of it. However I fear that if this growing problem is not fixed the program is doomed. This is the sad and honest truth.

The analysis here fails to fully explore the situation and other parts of the solution. We have dealt with scores of workers who have left their approved employer. In all the cases we have dealt with it has been because they have had a lack of work. Sometimes it has been no work for six or eight weeks, while still having deductions for accommodation, vehicle rental, health insurance and other charges chewing up their hard earned savings. They are unable to send money home to their families. In many cases they had repeated promises of work that never happened, so sick of failed promises they go and look for work elsewhere. The pandemic with the border closures has made it hard on employers to keep workers stuck in Australia in work at some times of the year. However, there also appears to be cases of poor management by employers of finding work for the workers, and it is the workers who bear the brunt. Workers who disengage from their approved employer and go and work elsewhere know their visa can be cancelled, so filing a protection visa is a way of being able to work with a legal visa off the SWP and PLS. What many workers fail to realise is if they file a meritless protection claim that is rejected, they may find they are then banned from being able to return to Australia for three years. We also have experience of migration agents engaged in illegal activity, actively encouraging workers to file protection claims. One migration agent we were able to report to authorities was encouraging Tongan workers to file meritless protection claims while scamming $5,000 from each worker for filing the claim. We have spent a lot of time talking to workers who have disengaged from their approved employers and helping them reconnect into the SWP. In the cases we have worked on the Department of Education, Skills and Employment and the Department of Home Affairs have often gone the extra mile to assist workers in the re-engagement and find them work within the SWP. The solutions to the problem not outlined in the article are: - Faster processes to allow workers to transfer between workplaces with their existing approved employer; - Faster processes to allow workers to transfer between employers when their existing approved employer is not able to meet the obligation of providing an average of 30 hours of work per week for several weeks; - A formal program that actively locates workers who have disengaged from the SWP and PLS and encourages and facilitates them to come back to the programs and drop meritless claims for protection; and - A greater crackdown on employers and migration agents that encourage workers to leave the programs and file meritless protection claims.

Hi Gordon, I read your article on Gersony with interest and enjoyment. I have known Bob for decades - indeed it was I that introduced him to Kaplan while we were .staying in the Acripole Hotel in Khartoum some decades ago (ref page 137) of Kaplans book. Good to read your comments - I am still in touch with both these rogues! Graham Miller

Thank you for the important article. Something to consider: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9645/htm?fbclid=IwAR2PCuYUBGnjYZWw0IsNqt2AIwoZdPNTnXWcbJnL5hpLq-3KjukONG1KaVI and http://www.ithaka-journal.net/aktivkohlen-eine-saubere-sache Use google translator link if you like or get in touch with me with any questions, ideas and thoughts.

A very interesting and encouraging article for the education ministry and all stakeholders of it. The strategies listed there if taken into consideration by the decision makers of the education system will definitely help in bridging the gap which is there due to the pandemic in the teaching and learning.

I THINK, ITS TIME TO LEAVE PEOPLE ON THEIR OWN LAND AND SEA WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS . THANKYOU .

We have had highlights despite being the least vaccinated country in the world, we have the lowest covid-19 deaths, and hospital admissions. Most of us have not had boosters, vaccinated, or mask wearing yet we have not reached the same level of severity and transmissions and panic as we see in the western world.

“ How can we persuade people who are preoccupied simply with survival that democracy, good governance and rule of law are so important to make Fiji better?” This question goes to the heart of difficulty many of us have trying to convince our people that broader institutional issues matter, in the long run.

Jon Apted says this: 'The Commission’s work involved travelling the length and breadth of Fiji to hear the people.' In a politics class at USP, as a new lecturer starting work just before the 1999 election I repeated the claim that the Commission had travelled and consulted widely, which if I recall accurately came from one of Brij Lal's essays on the Commission. A Taukei student laughed loudly and in a derisory tone. He claimed that the Commission's visit to his village was brief, involved speaking with the chief and a couple of elderly (males), then leaving. No `commoners' and just `important people'. That is, for the people who held power in Fiji it was merely ritualised acceptance of a shallow process. Significantly what Brij Lal called the best constitution Fiji ever had, had little political weight. It had negligible importance, and lasted only a year or so before being confined to the dustbin of Fiji's history by a nationalist rabble led by some disgruntled soldiers and a failed businessman. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, as Jon Apted says, the Constitution is pre-history in today's Fiji.

A very good article. Very well written and quite factual too. Especially the part about pre-2006. That's history now and the new / next generation won't have an inkling of whatever really happened and has been happening since 1987. Today most Fijians I meet don't even know Fiji was a British Constitutional Monarchy from 1970 to 1987 and that even after independence, the Queen remained Head of State just like Australia and New Zealand and that Rabuka removed the Governor General, the Queen's representative and made Fiji a Republic without a referendum and in the process created the coup culture that exists today. Today's generation blame everything on the current government because that's all they have seen and known and they don't even bother to read the entire book. They're just reading the recent chapters and judging the entire book based on them.