Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Riverina as well for giving us this opportunity to talk about the PALM scheme. We acknowledge the background to this scheme, but we're also incredibly happy and confident in our ability to grow it, because our government understands the importance of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, or the PALM scheme, to not only our Pacific family but also those Australian producers that benefit so much from it.

I was quite happy to listen to the history lesson on the program. But it was a serious thing when, as honourable members might remember, the current Leader of the Opposition made jokes about the future of people in the Pacific, some time ago. That is not the sort of empathy that we want, or need, to grow and further enhance our relationship with the Pacific islands. I hope that has been a learning point for some of those opposite. I don't put the member for Riverina in that basket at all, but I think it goes to underscore a point about how important not only diplomacy is but also real action on climate change and on the things that are important to people, such as employment in the Pacific, is.

When our government came to office, the total number of PALM workers in Australia was just over 24,400. The member for Riverina had some figures. In the October 2022 budget we committed to reaching 35,000 workers by June 2023. We reached that goal in December, some six months ahead of schedule. Far from being a small increase, or a low bar, this was a 44 per cent increase in just seven months, more than quadrupling the workers here in Australia from the Pacific compared to pre-COVID times. Reaching this milestone early is one demonstration of our commitment to immediately address longstanding workforce issues across the key sectors in our economy. Coming from the Northern Territory, I certainly understand that.

The workers coming under this scheme are earning income, developing skills and filling workforce shortages across 28 industries, including agriculture, food processing, hospitality and aged care. All honourable members would be aware of workforce challenges in these industries. The scheme is vital for filling workplace shortages in regional Australia and ensuring businesses can continue supporting their communities when there are limited local workers available.

The scheme remains uncapped and will continue to grow as long as there is demand from Australian businesses. There are currently more than 37,000 pre-screened workers across the Pacific who are waiting to work in Australia. In the Northern Territory, which hosts over 1,000 workers, we've recently seen 215 arrive from Samoa and 151 from Vanuatu to pick mangoes. They were very welcome, of course. The last of the mangoes are in the markets at the moment, actually. Many of them were picked by those workers.

Thirty-five Samoans have also served as aged-care and disability support workers in remote areas of the Territory, where we can really struggle for workforce. Last March we saw 150 more seasonal workers from Fiji and Timor-Leste arrive in Darwin and Alice Springs to bolster the Territory's tourism, hospitality, aged-care, disability and agricultural workforces.

Indeed, just the other day, returning from the air show down at Avalon, I chatted with a bunch of great blokes from Timor-Leste. One of them, Tino, has work at the Humpty Doo Barramundi farm, south-east of Darwin. He'd been using the opportunity not only to earn an income to support his brother's education but also to develop his own skills and to learn more about leadership. He has a good reputation as a hard worker and dedicates himself to excellence. 'I try to be the best I can be,' he said.

Thanks to the hundreds of workers like Tino, the scheme makes a massive contribution to the Territory. It also boosts the Pacific and Timor-Leste's economies by lifting families out of poverty. This program is a real driver of economic development in the Pacific. It will continue to succeed and grow under our government. (Time expired)

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