Comments

Tara & Grant Thank you so much for making the 2nd trip back to Gulf Province. Yes, I know the feeling when teachers express gut wrenching times/situations they experience in making sure they try their best in implementing the policies of the Government, especially in Education & Health. Over my 6 years (2011 - 2016) in working in the province as a Oil & Gas employee (exploration), I have come across many similar situations described here. My company I work has been as part of its CSR Policies, assisted many remote schools and health centres. I once donated a pretty expensive Solar vaccine Fridge (K30,000.00) to a remote health centre after I assisted a nearby health centre nursing staff manage a measles outbreak in a number of villages near the exploration drilling site. And I have helped deliver school materials where the Govt was not able to. Gulf Province by all means is not remote. It is one of only two provinces in this country that is connected to the Capital City by road, hence it should be taking advantage of this unique position. Yet it is not doing so. It is far cheaper to move things in bulk to Kerema the provincial capital by road from Port Moresby and then re-distributing by Sea, River and Air. The major issue is the proper use of funding to ensure this happens. Unfortunately, most often this is not the case. Contributing issues of good governance are also major concerns when development priorities are mis-placed by leaders (at the political & administrative level). This is also exacerbated by lack of proper planning by key bureaucrats & total negligence by political leaders to lead changes. The end result is lack of development all areas of the development in the province. Gulf has the people at the provincial, district and local level to bring about changes in the people's lives in the key social indexes but need to have good leadership at all levels of the society (Province). Thank you,

Thanks for your response Robin. I certainly agree the GCF is only one avenue of climate finance support and the $100 billion everyone is looking for needs to come from many sources including the private sector, bilateral and multilateral donors. But the implied suggestion that Pacific can look elsewhere for climate funds generates several issues worth considering. Two issues that I find particularly compelling are: 1. The global community doesn't really want more climate funds. You will recall a few years ago that many donors were criticised for their 'proliferation of funds'. The criticism's storyline was that there were too many special interest or regional funds were creating inefficiency for recipients. Perhaps to some extent that is why we ended up with one humongous global fund - the GCF. I don't think this issue has gone away and for the foreseeable future there will be little appetite for setting up a 'Pacific Climate Fund'. 2. The GCF offers a development opportunity that donors can rarely provide: direct access to climate funds. And provides them with a kind of self-determination they find very attractive. My discussions with Pacific leaders lead me to believe it is not just about the money, it is to some extent about independence. I agree that the GCF's 'one fund for all' approach is very ambitious. But the alternative 'one fund for some' is - at the moment at least - even less appealing.

Hi Stephen, I agree that making them less onerous will be beneficial. I disagree that removing the requirement that they be registered is one of the more sensible options. If Australian government agencies including Fair Work Australia have limited resources, it is preferable that they know which employers they need to monitor by way of a registration process rather than trying to monitor everyone which creates the risk of widespread abuse as seen with the backpacker experience.

In an ideal world , superannuation collected from seasonal workers acts as a compulsory savings scheme uplifting the amount of cash that can be repatriated. The reality is that the process of getting it back is cumbersome and if workers do not receive assistance from an employer or agent it is often foregone. A better option is to facilitate payments into the national provident funds in home countries to assist with developing a buffer against financial shocks.

HI Tess, We're not talking about removing the regulations, but making them less onerous, in sensible ways. See <a href="https://devpolicy.org/reforming-the-seasonal-worker-program-suggestions-from-an-employer-20150310/">this blog</a> for some very practical suggestions towards that end.

Thanks Nicole. Fair points in your first para. On the second, I understand that the government is not abolishing super for backpackers but basically confiscating it via tax. On the third, I don't think the Australian government prefers backpackers because of the cultural aspects, but because (a) employers prefer their flexibility and (b) they spend what they earn in Australia. But it is slowly changing, and the SWP is growing over time.

Very important message : Diabetes is still a major health challenge in the Pacific with social and economic implication. Diabetes is the "face of NCD" in the Pacific. We must look after it as we look after our faces.

SWP is no longer referred to as Pacific Seasonal Worker Program. Additionally, referring to participants solely as 'Pacific Islanders' with the inclusion of Timor-Leste, which doesn't self-identify as a PiC neither in terms of culture nor geographically speaking. Other than this, I agree and support your proposed goal of "Reducing the number of backpackers and increasing the number of Pacific seasonal workers should be a central policy goal for migration in Australia". I think broad reforms are due for both labour migration schemes. There are at present calls from the horticultural sector for parity in tax rates between the two schemes, I would meet this suggestion with a request for the government to remove the labour market testing requirement from the SWP as an effort toward achieving a parity in administrative burden between the two schemes. It would also be a shame to see the removal of superannuation from one scheme and not the other. If the government removes the requirement to pay super to backpackers, this only increases their relative attractiveness further reducing potential employer's motivation to pursue approval to employ seasonal workers. If the government removes superannuation from both programs, the seasonal workers, who are often living in very poor conditions in their home country, will lose vital funds which assist them to improve their quality of life toward an acceptable level. I think reforms which support a shift from reliance on unregulated backpacker labour to the SWP is unlikely to occur because for the most part, the Australian people and the present government preference the cultural exchange objectives espoused by the WHM visa over the development objectives inherent with the SWP.

I think it's really important to maintain a discussion about the inter relationship between how Australia deals with backpackers and how the SWP operates. Not least because it is deficiencies in 'whole of government' approaches that is one of the reasons that SWP lags behind RSE. However if the premise is that SWP is preferable because it is regulated and therefore exploitation is reduced it appears incongruous to then argue that the way to make SWP more attractive (e.g. To people who have been exploiting backpackers) is by removing the regulation that apparently provides protection to Pacific island workers.

Pleased you are flagging up this issue, and particularly that you are including communication devices on this list, which so often are ignored in terms of assistive devices. Great blog!

When Camilla and I were Googling for this post we also found some miscellaneous Wonder Woman facts and analysis that others might find interesting. We didn't want to go on a tangent so I'm just sharing some of them here in the comments. <a href="http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/wonder-woman-feminist-icon-feminist-failure-or-both" rel="nofollow">Wonder Woman: Feminist Icon, Feminist Failure, or Both?</a> - this is an interesting article with some of the history and different perspectives, particularly on the worldview of Wonder Woman's creator <em>"[Comic book historian] Hanley’s curiosity over Wonder Woman’s curious career begins with her curious creator, writer and psychologist William Moulton Marston. Marston “wanted to impart to his readers a specific message about female superiority,” Hanley writes. Marston’s feminism didn’t hold that men and women were equal. Instead, he believed that women were superior and could bring about a more just and peaceful society than what men had achieved so far, especially in the midst of World War II. Wonder Woman’s women-only homeland of Themyscira thus became a utopian ideal. In the context of wartime America, Wonder Woman became “a superpowered Rosie the Riveter, constantly encouraging women to join the auxiliary forces or get a wartime job,” Hanley argues. While Wonder Woman inspired women to realize their full potential, she also prepared young boys reading the comics for the coming matriarchy, which Marston was devoutly believed would come after the war."</em> But... <em>"Marston’s worldview came with complications, particularly a connoisseur’s eye for bondage, which went far beyond just the heroine’s “golden lasso of truth.” “For Marston,” Hanley defends, “bondage was about submission, not just sexually but in every aspect of life.” For the female utopia to happen, men must submit control, but everyone must submit individual desires to the greater goals of society."</em> Also, if you like vintage comic book artwork, there's some selected feminist panels from Wonder Woman cartoons in these posts <a href="http://comicsalliance.com/wonder-woman-feminism-meredith-finch-david-finch-dc/" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://veleda-k.tumblr.com/post/91379284953/wonder-woman-is-a-feminist" rel="nofollow">here</a>, and some arguments backing up her feminist status. And it's interesting how the UN has glossed over her being a LGBTI icon, in typical UN style. There's a lot online about that as well.

Thanks Wendy (and sorry for the delay in getting your comment up, our spam filter is sometimes a little overzealous). I'm not entirely opposed to hijacking pop culture/celebrity to help communicate a socially beneficial message, as long as it doesn't compromise the message or come at a big cost. And as long as it is done really well and effectively, which as those reports show, is often not the case. From a comms standpoint, I think the Wonder Woman appointment comes with a risk of confusing the UN's already kind of fuzzy gender equality messaging - recently it was all #HeforShe, which I always found a bit patronising and vague but I at least kind of understood what they were trying to do with it (even if the execution was off). Now it's about a woman who comes from an all woman planet and who has been both sexualised and objectified by men throughout history but on the other hand has at times espoused a very hardline feminist message that could be seen by the overly sensitive as 'anti-male'. It's all just really confusing from a messaging point of view. Who are they trying to communicate with and mobilise with this campaign? Which version of Wonder Woman is their ambassador (she's had many iterations throughout history)? Is empowerment about equality and partnership between men and women, or is it about women becoming dominant? Such messy messaging. So I oppose this one, but not all. But a big communications question for me in using celebrity/icons would be - whose pop culture do they represent? I think you are spot on about needing to look at regional and national celebrities if you are going to get messages to have traction in particular countries or regions. There is a real dominance of American/Western celebrities on the books as ambassadors and Wonder Woman is no exception. Yes, some of these celebs are truly global, but I completely agree that there is a real need to look at how they play with certain audiences. I'm not convinced of the need to call these people 'ambassadors' though. I think that's where this really sunk. Sure, if there is a good comms and messaging strategy, give some Wonder Woman related tweets a go and tie it in to the anniversary and the movie. But don't call her an 'honorary ambassador for women's empowerment' - that's going to annoy real women who are tired of living up to impossible standards and pressures, let alone fictional superhero ones. It does seem really trivial to appoint someone who has superhuman powers to be an ambassador for an issue that includes gender violence. What, are women supposed to just get superpowers and kapow bang whoosh their way out of violent situations? It's like the UN think that women just need more inspiration to be powerful, instead of actual structural change.