Majority of Australians believe PALM workers deserve the right to change employers

In January, an unnamed employer in an unnamed part of Australia was fined a record $540,000 for keeping 25 migrant workers in a three-bedroom house under conditions likened to modern slavery. In February, investigators found 22 migrant workers living in unsanitary conditions in Gippsland – tenants were charged $190 each, which meant the landlord got over $4000 a week. This month, an apple company operating in Victoria’s Yarra Valley is in court because it allegedly paid an unlicensed labour hire company $190,000 for access to migrant workers – the two companies could be fined a collective total of $19.5 million.

Victoria’s Labour Hire Licensing Commissioner, Steve Dargavel, who investigated the latter two cases, said that the commission receives many tip-offs about these issues, which he called a national problem: “a lot of the people who are being ripped off by these dodgy labour-hire providers are people who are quite vulnerable.” If this is a national problem, and new cases of exploitation come to light every few weeks, it is time to resolve the systemic problems behind it.

All of these cases involve people who have come to Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme, which allows people from nine Pacific Island Nations and Timor Leste to work in Australia for up to four years, but only in industries classified as low, semi, or unskilled. Most work on farms picking fruit or vegetables, or in abattoirs, cutting up the animals that become our steaks and sausages.

The scheme has been dogged by reports of worker exploitation and abuse since its inception. In a 2022 Senate inquiry, Matt Canavan likened the precursor of the program to a form of indentured labour. After a visit to Australia in 2024, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery expressed concerns that people who participate in the scheme are at risk of modern slavery, and a current NSW Government inquiry into modern slavery has the PALM scheme squarely in its sights.

Report, after report, after report have recommended the same thing: give people on PALM visas the right to leave their employer if they so choose. As it stands, PALM visas are sponsored by a single employer, and this creates the power imbalance at the root of these kinds of exploitation.

In March, the PALM Futures Forum brought together unions, diplomats from Pacific Island nations, PALM scheme employers invested in the success of the scheme, and representatives from 20 regional councils who are grappling with the everyday benefits and challenges of having large numbers of temporary migrants in their communities. All of these disparate groups called on the federal government to reform the PALM scheme, including by giving workers the right to change employers.

New polling from The Australia Institute shows that the majority of Australians would support this move – 62% of Australians either agree or strongly agree that people on the PALM visa should have the right to leave an employer they no longer want to work for, so they can go and work somewhere else.

Properly paying workers – including superannuation – is proving to be another persistent problem with the PALM scheme. In yet another recent case, a company called iComply, which hired many people through the PALM scheme, collapsed owing $12.2 million in debt, including four million dollars in superannuation to former employees. A liquidator says these debts are unlikely to ever be paid out. These workers earned this super doing some of the most strenuous, lowest-paying jobs in Australia, and now they will probably never see it. “iComply should pay back because of the sweat and hard work for the workers. It’s workers’ money,” one worker from Vanuatu told the ABC.

Like everyone else who works in Australia, people employed under the PALM scheme are required to pay part of their wages into a superannuation account, even though it is very unlikely that they will ever retire in Australia. But geographic, digital, and language barriers make it very difficult for former PALM visa holders to access their super once they leave Australia.

A simple way of mitigating this problem would be to automate the process of returning superannuation payments to workers participating in the PALM scheme. Australia already operates a portable superannuation scheme with New Zealand, elements of which could be replicated for PALM visa holders. Alternatively, Australia could do what New Zealand does, and allow Pacific guestworkers to send their super payments to an account back home. Another possible solution would be to remove the requirement for employers to make superannuation contributions for workers on short-term PALM visas, and instead pay the funds directly to workers as higher wages.

The problems with the PALM scheme are not going away, and the governments of the Pacific are aware. In an address to the National Press Club, the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste called the program unfair and exploitative. If Australia wants to enjoy good relations with its neighbours, it could start by treating its hard-working labourers with respect.

You can hear stories from the Pacific Islanders who have worked in Australia under the scheme in the four-part Australia Institute podcast PALMed Off.