PALMed Off, Episode 4
Wed 7 Jan 2026 16.10 AEDT
AAP Image/Poppy Johnston
What would it take to make the PALM scheme a genuine win-win for Australia and its neighbours?
In the fourth and final episode of PALMed Off, host Morgan Harrington canvases some of the proposed solutions to the problems facing the PALM scheme, including an amnesty for disengaged workers and ensuring that everyone working in Australia has the right to leave their employer.
PALMed Off is a special four-part series of Follow the Money exploring the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, an Australian Government guestworker program that could be putting people from nine Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste at risk of modern slavery.
The interviews for this podcast were recorded between June and August 2025.
Host: Morgan Harrington, Research Manager, The Australia Institute // @mhharrington
Interviewees: Ken Dachi (Welcoming Australia), Dr Lindy Kanan (researcher), Dr Matt Withers (ANU), (Waskam) Emelda Davis (ASSI-Port Jackson Chair), Thomas Costa (Unions NSW), anonymous former PALM workers
Scripting and production support: Stephen Long, Senior Fellow & Contributing Editor, the Australia Institute
Sound design and mixing: Simon Branthwaite
Show notes:
‘The PALM Scheme: Labour rights for our Pacific partners’, The Australia Institute (December 2023)
“If I stay like this, how can I benefit my family?” Initial findings on disengagement from the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme by Kirstie Petrou, Matt Withers, Kaya Barry and Emily House, Griffith University (December 2025)
Australian South Sea Islanders – Port Jackson: publications
Theme music: ‘Mumbwe’ by Tio, with thanks to the Wantok Music Foundation
We’d love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to podcasts@australiainstitute.org.au.
Under One Nation’s policy, the gas industry would not pay anything for at minimum 10 years – which is why it hasn’t kicked up a fuss. What Hanson has done, is show that Labor and Liberal are the only ones who see the status quo as the way forward. The gas industry knows that, so it is supporting the circuit breaker, which makes it seem like something is being done.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing backlash after quoting inaccurate statistics from the gas lobby, while defending his decision not to impose a 25% tax on gas exports in the federal budget. Mr Albanese was interviewed on radio during a post-budget trip to Perth, during which he claimed that “gas companies paid $22 billion of tax last year”. The $22 billion figure is not an official estimate by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), but a figure produced by a gas lobby group.
