Turn on the news these days and you’re likely to be confronted with articles about worker shortages. Nurses, cooks, construction workers, accountants, care home employees, all seem to be in demand throughout high-income countries. Despite this need, these countries currently do very little to...
Richard Baker’s recent series on labour conditions and recruitment practices in the Australian meat industry makes for essential reading. His main focus has been on the plight of Chinese and Vietnamese workers on Temporary Skills Shortage visas in Australian abattoirs. Baker’s most recent article...
Arguments against the new Australian Agricultural visa have so far focused on its rushed introduction, its lack of justification, the confusion that still surrounds it, and that it will undermine Australia’s strategic goals in the Pacific and increase the risks of worker exploitation. In this...
This week the Australian Government announced a “new era for Pacific Australia labour mobility”. A new acronym would have been more accurate – PALM. It is described on its new website as the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, under which sit the existing schemes, now downgraded to...
Much about the new Australian Agricultural visa smacks of poor public policy. Four flaws stand out:...
As noted in my previous blog, since the restart of Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) and...
When New Zealand closed its international border on 19 March 2020 following the onset of the COVID...
As recounted in our first blog, 286 I-Kiribati workers, including 97 women, have been in New...
On 1 August 2021, 16 months after New Zealand and Kiribati closed their international borders in...
In my last blog on the subject, I set out three ways by which the June ASEAN agricultural visa...
