Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure today to speak on the Social Services Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023. It provides important social supports to Pacific migrants who are entering Australia. I'll just give a brief overview as to what those social supports will be for those Pacific migrants. Those supports are going to be provided to permanent migrants arriving in Australia under the new Pacific engagement visa and, secondly, temporary migrants under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme. These two migration pathways, the Pacific engagement visa and the PALM scheme, are key elements in Australia's engagement with the Pacific. They provide significant benefits not just to our Pacific neighbours and our Pacific friends but also to the people of Australia and to our nation. In particular, they benefit Australian employers who are facing labour shortages. We know that's a big issue right across the country. Businesses are crying out for workers. This is one of the ways that we can address that shortage.

It also benefits regional communities, with workers coming from the Pacific into those communities, in various different industries, helping to fill that short fault—industries like agriculture, meat processing and aged care, which are all vital and very diversely spread right across our economy. They're also going to help our Pacific island partners by providing those migrants opportunities to work within Australia and to learn new skills. I just mentioned those few industries before: agriculture, meat processing and aged care. It's also important to send remittances home to their families and their communities, which really does support Australia's role as a global citizen and a regional leader in the Asia-Pacific region.

This bill supports the migration programs by ensuring Pacific migrants will have positive experiences in Australia. I want to touch on the importance of Australia's friendships in the Pacific with our partner nations. We know the Pacific has had long-standing challenges. We've seen economic underdevelopment. We've seen geographical isolation, distances covering vast oceans between islands. We've also seen significant environmental pressures, which have been exacerbated by climate change. Further, they've also been exacerbated by the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, which is something that I'm acutely familiar with, as are many members in this chamber here this evening.

I'll go back to climate change because it's not just the insidious nature of climate change running in the background; it's also the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events that we've seen as a result of climate change. I also want to touch on the security challenges of this region. We look at transnational crime, illegal fishing and, more importantly, geostrategic competition in the Pacific.

We also have strengths. Australia has unique strengths in Pacific relations, including the fact that we have shared values between our nations and historic connections in both peace and in times of conflict. Also, I think of the cultural, sporting and religious links we have with countries in the Pacific. I think of the sport I played in high school and also in university, rugby union. It's something that I still enjoy doing, although I can't walk for many days after I play a game now, but that's beside the point. Those sporting relationships through the Pacific are absolutely vital.

We have close people-to-people links. We have a vibrant Pacific diaspora living within Australia. I think of my own electorate in Robertson and right across the Central Coast. When we look at census figures from 2021, there are 160,000 Australian residents who were born in Pacific island nations and Pacific countries. Around 270,000 people have at least one parent who was born in a Pacific country. These communities in Australia provide those direct personal connections and relationships between Australia and our friends throughout the Pacific. In addition, there are around 40,000 Pacific nationals working within Australia under the PALM scheme. They are providing vital support to our industries right across the board, but in particular in our regional communities and in our regional industries that are so important for economic productivity in this country and so important for economic productivity within our states. As I said before, they're learning new skills to support their own countries when they return home, and part of Australia's responsibility is to make sure that we are providing that opportunity for people in our part of the world.

It goes to show the Albanese Labor government's comprehensive Pacific agenda, which I know has been promoted by the Prime Minister and also by the relevant ministers, including Minister Conroy, the member for Shortland. I like to remind him that the bottom third of his electorate is on the Central Coast, so he's part of team Central Coast. When the Albanese government came into office we had a comprehensive plan to strengthen our relationship with Pacific countries. We're getting on with implementing that plan, and that's what this bill is. Our comprehensive Pacific package includes stepping up Australia's defence cooperation with the Pacific, so the ADF, the Australian Defence Force, will be providing new training opportunities for members of the Pacific defence and security forces.

We are also making sure that we are assisting Pacific countries by helping them protect one of their most valuable environmental and economic resources—their vast ocean territories. What the Albanese Labor government is doing is doubling the funding for aerial surveillance of Pacific countries' exclusive economic zones under the Pacific Maritime Security Program. What this is going to do and achieve is help us tackle, as a team, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which costs Pacific countries hundreds of million dollars in lost revenue. That's less money for our Pacific neighbours, a decrease in economic productivity and the like. It also helps tackle other security risks in the region—for example, looking at illicit activities by transnational criminal networks, which are so damaging not just to Pacific nations but also to Australia.

The next phase, the next stage, of this plan, which we're already implementing, is taking climate change seriously and making sure that we are tackling climate change and helping our Pacific partners. This includes establishing the new Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership and making sure that we're supporting climate adaptation resilience projects within our region. It includes making sure that we are amplifying the voices of our Pacific partners in international climate change forums and in negotiations that we see right across the world, including the Vanuatu government's request to the International Court of Justice for an advisory body on climate change. We're also bidding to co-host with the Pacific a United Nations climate change conference, to make sure that we are getting that global spotlight and that there's a global view on the impact of climate change, particularly on our region.

We're also supporting economic, social and human development within the Pacific. We're increasing Australia's official developmental assistance budget for Pacific countries by $900 million over four years. We're also providing $1.9 billion in development assistance for our Pacific neighbours in 2023-24, making us the region's biggest developmental partner, because we take these relationships with our Pacific friends seriously. What this does is provide critical support to low-income Pacific countries in areas like health care and access to health care, preventive medicine, education, water, sanitation and infrastructure—those areas of economic and social need that are so important for a growing and developing country.

So how does this bill support the PALM scheme? That's an important question to answer. The PALM scheme is one of our most important Pacific policies. It provides Australian farmers with a vital source of labour to harvest their crops and make sure that they can get their goods to the market. What it does is deepen the links within our region by allowing thousands of Pacific workers to come to Australia to earn decent incomes and, as I said earlier, gain valuable skills that they will use here and then, also, use upon their return. That's why the government is expanding and improving the PALM scheme. When we came to office in May last year, there were approximately 25,000 migrants in Australia under the PALM scheme. Since then, that number has risen to, I think, about 40,000 people. Our policies to expand the scheme have reduced the burden of travel costs on employers. We have expanded the scheme into new sectors like aged care, making sure we're getting workers into those vital sectors where we really need to make sure that we're looking after our elderly and our most vulnerable and also improving protections for Pacific workers.

We're now introducing a pilot program that will allow PALM scheme workers to bring their families to Australia. Workers under the PALM scheme provide essential support to the Australian economy, but so, too, do the families that many of them have had to leave behind in the past. The new family accompaniment program will allow PALM scheme workers on a one- to four-year placement to bring their immediate families to Australia. We're starting with a pilot of 200 families so we can monitor the new measure to ensure that it's working for everyone involved in the scheme. The bill is going to ensure that PALM scheme workers participating in the family accompaniment component will be able to access appropriate benefits, so the bill is going to amend the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 to allow eligible PALM scheme workers taking part in the family accompaniment program to access family tax benefit parts A and B and also to access the childcare subsidy. This is going to help PALM scheme workers with the cost of raising a family here in Australia and make it easier, too, for their spouses to participate in the workforce, making sure we're getting people into the workforce if they so choose, which is going to be good all round for employers who are facing the labour shortages that we have seen now for quite some time.

Also, this bill is going to support the government's new Pacific engagement visa. That's going to allow 3,000 nationals of Pacific countries and of Timor-Leste to come to Australia as permanent migrants each year. This visa is a signature initiative of the Albanese Labor government's plan to build a stronger Pacific family and stronger relationships with our Pacific partners. It's designed to grow the Pacific and Timor-Leste diaspora here within the Australian community. As I was saying with regard to the PALM scheme, it will provide employers with a bigger pool of labour, making sure that we're filling those labour shortfalls in our communities. It's also going to address the underrepresentation of some of our closest neighbours in Australia's permanent migration system. I'm just looking at the eligibility criteria for that. It's being aged between 18 and 45, having a job offer from an Australian employer, having basic English language proficiency and meeting standard immigration health and character requirements.

In conclusion, this bill is going to support the expansion and improvement of the PALM scheme and support the new Pacific engagement visa, all of which is going to strengthen and deeply enrich our connection with our Pacific partners and members in our region. They're all part of the Albanese Labor government's comprehensive plan to help Pacific countries meet their economic, development and climate change challenges and the security challenges within our region.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023. This bill supports our engagement with many countries in the Pacific, including countries like Timor-Leste. It will implement family accompaniment under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, commonly known as the PALM scheme, and it will introduce a new Pacific engagement visa.

Australia's Relationship with Timor-Leste is very close. Timor-Leste's success is very important to Australia. We share a region and a future. It's very important that both nations are prosperous and peaceful and that there is deep respect, friendship, and solidarity. A strong and prosperous Timor-Leste is of fundamental importance to our country. We are Timor-Leste's leading development assistance partner, and we support its economic diversification and private sector growth through our development cooperation program and labour mobility scheme.

We're expanding access to Australia for Timorese workers under the PALM scheme, which began under the previous Labor Government. Almost 5,000 Timorese workers are currently in Australia, employed across rural and regional areas, remitting more than $37 million each year back to their families. That's just one example from one country. We're expanding opportunities for seasonal workers to gain valuable skills and improve workers' rights and conditions. This will support an additional 35 Timorese to complete formal qualifications in aged care, which will build critical skills and bolster economic resilience. We've recently doubled our Australia Awards Scholarships from 10 to 20. We created 18 places in that fellowship program. We're creating new scholarships for Timorese to the Australia Pacific Training Coalition. Our cooperation extends not just to Timor-Leste but across a whole range of sectors in the Pacific: security, health, agriculture, human development and economic resilience. We are expanding our cooperation through major infrastructure projects.

Australian values are very important, and we also value our partnership in the Pacific with our Pacific family very deeply. We're grateful to our Pacific partners for their stewardship of the seas and for preserving the region's biodiversity. They're custodians of some of the planet's most ancient cultures and many of the world's languages. We have a profound sense of kinship with the Pacific, of wanting to connect with the Pacific as part of one family. We have a longstanding bond, and this has been forged through times of crisis and sustained in peace and prosperity.

These bonds are evident in the dynamic contributions of the Pacific diaspora to Australian life in music, sport and culture. You would only have to go to a football semifinal in what I've often described as rugby league or rugby union states, Queensland and New South Wales, this weekend to see that. This weekend I will be popping into the rugby league grand finals in Ipswich, and I guarantee you that a large proportion of the players in the grand finals through various grades will be from the Pacific community. We value the contributions that they make in sporting, cultural and religious and spiritual life. Schools in my electorate, for example in eastern suburbs, are full of people from Samoa, Tonga and other parts of the Pacific. Indeed, when Samoa upset England in the Rugby League World Cup, you could see Samoan flags everywhere when driving around particularly the eastern suburbs of Ipswich in that period of time—not quite as many there after Australia beat them in the final in the men's world cup! Certainly, it was a demonstration in my local community, not just in the schools or on the football fields or the various church and faith based organisation, that the number of people from Pacific communities living in my electorate is very high. There are schools where up to 40 per cent of the school cohort are from Pacific communities.

We're going to ensure that Pacific workers are treated fairly and with better conditions. This will allow workers to bring their families and provide a pathway to permanent residency for 3,000 members of our Pacific family every year. These people have been contributing to our culture for generations, and we haven't always treated them as well as we need to. There is a long history in my home state of Queensland of people not being treated well, particularly in North Queensland.

To work with nations of the Pacific to recover from the pandemic is very important. These countries, like our country, are still feeling the after effect of the pandemic. The Albanese Labor government will increase our overseas development assistance to the Pacific by $525 million over the next four years. I know, from speaking to various high commissioners and ambassadors from these regions, that this is deeply appreciated. Pacific women have played a key role in economic and recovery efforts. Economies and communities work well together when we remove barriers to women and girls in national life.

We stand with the Pacific islands in dealing with the climate change crisis. As stated in the recent Pacific Islands Forum's Boe Declaration on Regional Security, 'Climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.' We share the view of our Pacific friends that climate change is not an abstract threat but an existential one. We must take serious action not just to reduce emissions and transform our economy but to assist them to transform their economies. Nothing is more important to the security and the economies of the Pacific.

During the last election I spoke at a Politics in the Pub candidates event at the Esk Grand Hotel in the Somerset region in my electorate. One matter raised there by the local farmers was the PALM scheme. I note that PALM workers were earning an income developing skills and filling workforce shortages across 28 industries. These include agricultural and meat processing at several locations within Blair. It's an important issue, and the farmers in my electorate want to see reform. That was the main topic of conversation at the candidates forum in Esk.

In the Pacific region, more than a third of people live on less than $3 a day. The PALM scheme and similar programs enable some of the workers from the Pacific to send home more than $10,000 each year. That's at least 10 times $3 a day. It's a huge economic boost for these families and the whole region. Going into the 2022 election, the Labor Party promised to make it easier for Pacific workers to fill labour shortages across Australia and to enable them to bring their families here, and that's exactly what we're doing with this bill. The measures in this bill and related legislation give effect to our commitment to expand reform and improve the PALM scheme.

The PALM scheme is central to Australia's relationship with the Pacific nation. It helps develop skills and addresses youth unemployment and supports economic integration of our region. The scheme allows Australian employers to recruit workers from across the Pacific. It gets the nation signed up for short-term or seasonal worker placement for up to nine months and long-term placements between one and four years. All PALM scheme workers will be granted a PALM visa. There are other visas within this subclass for those not participating in the PALM scheme, and some PALM scheme workers are on a repeat PLS visa.

The Albanese government is committed to expanding and approving the scheme through a family accompaniment policy, which is really important for workers on these long-term placements. This initiative will reduce the social impacts of family separation for extended periods of time. The rollout of family accompaniment will begin with a pilot, including a limited number of families. The initial stage of the family accompaniment policy will include about 200 families. Participants will be selected according to certain program criteria, which will be used to limit the number of approvals. The initial stage of family accompaniment will allow program settings to be tested and adjusted over time to ensure that the program is delivering on its objectives, resulting in a positive experience for families.

The scheme workers on a long-term placement will need to meet additional program criteria to be eligible to bring their families to Australia. This will include the workers having spent a certain period of time in Australia or holding a work contract with at least 12 months as well as proximity to education for their dependent children. The bill amends residents requirements and the newly arrived residents waiting period under the tax laws.

It will enable scheme workers to access additional assistance. Most temporary skilled visa holders do not meet the resident requirements to qualify for family tax benefits and the childcare subsidy, and this includes people on the PALM scheme. The bill will amend these requirements to include subclass 403 visa holders who are PALM scheme participants or family members of PALM scheme participants. That is really important because it will allow those entitlements, from the family tax benefits to the childcare subsidy, to be given to those families. Applicants will need to meet certain conditions specified by a legislative instrument, and this will enable some of the visa holders to qualify. The conditions to be specified in the legislative instrument include that the applicant be approved by the department to bring family members to Australia under the policy or that the applicant is a family member of such an individual. These will be set out in the legislative instrument. It's very important.

Today, I was speaking to John Berry at JBS, who's known across the chamber here by many people. JBS is a big employer in my electorate. It employs currently 1,200 to 1,300 workers at Dinmore, one of the biggest meat processing plants in the country if not the biggest. I also have Kilcoy Global Foods up in Kilcoy, which is a huge meat processing establishment as well. John was telling me today that they are looking to expand back to two shifts in that meat processing plant.

Of course, the Chinese government's attitude in relation to health certification requirements meant that they, along with Kilcoy, were two of the four meat processing plants in the country who were the target of Chinese embargoes, if I can put it like that. This meant that both JBS at Dinmore and Kilcoy had to look for diversification in terms of their market and did so. But it had a consequence for my electorate, particularly at Dinmore where nearly 700 workers lost their job as a result.

I asked the former Prime Minister what he was going to do about that, and he said people could get JobSeeker because JBS weren't eligible for JobKeeper at the time. This meant that those workers lost their job.

JBS is looking to expand and were going to first look at workers in the local area. We have a lot of big high schools, and they're engaged with those high schools to get workers in the meat processing industry. You can have a great career in the meat processing industry. People go from labouring to semiskilled to skilled processing. The boners and slicers and other people are so skilled at what they do. There is great career progression through that area.

One of the options that JBS is looking at is this particular scheme, and this is very important. Many people who come to this country and work in meat processing end up becoming Australian citizens, and there are pathways to permanent residency. This is why this sort of scheme is really important.

About 51.5 per cent of Australians are either born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas. Just last week in the meat processing industry, which is a real topic of this particular bill, we had 38 people become citizens in a country town called Esk in my community. Thirty of them were meat processors who were involved in the meat processing industry and became Australian citizens. The delight on their face when becoming Aussies was just amazing. They brought their family members as well. This is a kind of Australia we want to build up. This is a generous nation that does schemes like this, schemes that help our neighbours with almost a—I mentioned the spiritual before—good Samaritan type of assistance, acknowledging we are all part of one family in the Pacific and we have to take action together on economic security, climate change and on the economy. If we can assist through schemes like these, which allow families to come so that people are not separated by geography—it's a long way from the Torres Strait to Tasmania and Brisbane to Broome, so just imagine these families being separated by this scheme—if we can bring people here and keep them together, it's good for their family, it's good for their spiritual welfare if I can put it like that, it's good for their personal and domestic lives and it's good for the children to have their parents and their extended family there amongst them.

Whilst this particular legislation might seem obtuse, turgid and might not be seen as the most sexy piece of bill we have in this chamber, it offers real, practical help for people in our region and it shows our country's generosity, our decency and our humanity. It also shows that we are thinking not just about ourselves but our neighbours and that good neighbourly policy. It's almost like we can express our concern, our affection and our love for our neighbours with bills like these that help our neighbours and support them in their economy and economic development, but it also means that when people come to this country and contribute to our economy, our society, our culture, our football, our faith, they can bring their families here, and this bill will help them do so.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an incredibly important debate. This bill, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023, is something that we absolutely must get right. It's incredibly important that we get it right because if we do we will get very good economic and social outcomes, which we all want for our neighbours in the Pacific. We will be able to help them grow their economies, grow their countries, grow their societies and become independent masters of their own destiny, which we all want.

It also can lead to very important economic outcomes for our nation because we can use the PALM scheme to address skill shortages, to help develop and grow industries in our country. In particular—and this is where the PALM scheme is so important—it can help develop and grow industries in rural and regional Australia. One of the things that we always need to be cognisant of is that we have no issues attracting immigrants into Sydney and Melbourne—and, to a lesser extent, Brisbane and our other major capital cities—but we have great difficulty getting people into our regions and ensuring that they stay in the regions.

The PALM scheme was introduced by the coalition as a way of providing economic and social benefits to the Pacific nations and also as a way of providing economic and social outcomes for rural and regional Australia. We shouldn't lose focus on the primacy of those objectives, because if we get that right we can build on the PALM scheme in a very effective way. The Pacific and Australia not only face economic and societal challenges but also face a very different world to the one that we lived in 10 years ago. It's one where geostrategic competition is playing out right across the globe and, in particular, in our region. Every decision we take that binds us closer to the Pacific is an incredibly important one.

The PALM scheme has been working effectively. Like any scheme, changes can be made to improve it even further. I demonstrated this a couple of weeks ago when I was in the electorate of Grey with the member for Grey, Rowan Ramsey. We went to see one of the big oyster producers and met with PALM workers there. We met with three Fijians who had just come back from harvesting oysters. They had big smiles on their faces and were very friendly. We were able to have a lovely chat with them and ask them about the PALM scheme. It was quite interesting to hear what they had to say. They were going to work hard for three years and send remittance back. They were going to save and provide housing for themselves and their families through the hard work that they were undertaking. Then they were going to take the skills that they'd learnt and put them to use in their own seafood industry—a win-win. They were providing much needed skills for the company that we were visiting, and then they were going to go back and use those skills to help further develop the Fijian seafood industry. To me, that epitomises how we should be viewing the PALM scheme, a scheme whereby we can bring workers from the Pacific, skill them—by providing them with work—and enable them to provide those skills to the countries they've come from, improving economic outcomes for their families and, ultimately over time, their societies, making their country stronger so that it can meaningfully engage in the Pacific with us to deal with the economic and geostrategic challenges that we currently face.

It is for this reason that the opposition supports this trial of allowing a small number of family members to accompany PALM workers to see whether this would enhance the PALM. If it does, and if it works efficiently and effectively and enables those family members to be able to contribute here and be with their partners as they contribute to our country, and then be able to use the remittances and the incomes earnt to build on the lives that they have back in their Pacific countries, then the trial will have worked.

That is why it is an incredibly important trial, but it should be a proper trial. We need to make sure we evaluate it properly and that we know it is working as it is laid out, because we want to make sure that it enhances the PALM and enhances those outcomes that I've talked about—those mutually beneficial outcomes that we can get from a scheme that works like the PALM scheme does.

We have to remember there is concern amongst our Pacific friends about the potential brain drain that can come from immigration schemes that take the very best of those workers in the Pacific and see their skills growing and enhancing our country but not being mutually beneficial in how the return goes to the countries that they are coming from. That is why the PALM scheme was designed as it is. That's why the PALM scheme, I think, has support both in Australia and also in the Pacific, but we do have to continue to watch and monitor to make sure that it is getting the outcomes that we need.

When it comes to the PEV, the Pacific engagement visa, the opposition is reserving our right on this part of this bill, because we do have concerns as to how the PEV will work and whether it does bring with it that mutually beneficial outcome the Pacific islands and Australia are looking for. As was mentioned by my friend the member for Riverina, the shadow minister for the pacific, he and I have been working with Ministers Conroy and Giles to see whether we could shape the Pacific engagement visa in a bipartisan way, so that we can all rest assured that it would be mutually beneficial. We've had a round of negotiations on that—we had those yesterday—and Minister Conroy has provided some feedback on that to both me and to the member for Riverina on what, potentially, we could look at to shape the PEV so that we get bipartisan agreement on it.

Can I thank Ministers Giles and Conroy for the very constructive way they have engaged with us. We will, in good faith, look at what has been provided to us and go back to both ministers on those proposals. If we can find a bipartisan way forward on the PEV, we will seek to do that. But the fact we have been able to sit down and have proper negotiations in good faith on that aspect of this bill is a very good first step. Even if, ultimately, we cannot reach agreement, I think it is very, very positive that we have been able to have proper discussions to see whether we can work through things. As I've said, my hope is that we might be able to resolve those differences, and the best way you can do that is to sit down and talk about it in good faith. Both sides have engaged in that way, which is a very good first step.

We've detailed some of the concerns that we have with the PEV, and I won't go into those details again now. I'd rather emphasise the fact we've been able to sit down and have meaningful discussions on, hopefully, being able to provide a way forward.

I'll conclude by saying—and I'll support the previous speaker, in this regard—this might sound like it's a bill that doesn't have a sexy name: the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023.

An honourable member: It's not that bad. We've heard worse.

We have heard worse; we have heard better. That title shouldn't lead us to underestimate how important our engagement is with the Pacific and, especially, how important it is at this time. I know I also speak for the opposition in saying that, when it comes to our engagement with the Pacific, we want to keep it as bipartisan as we possibly can, because I think it's very clear that both sides of the parliament understand the importance of that engagement.

There will, of course—as always—be times when we think there's a different approach which should be taken. This is a parliament. This is democracy. We do have to make sure that we can have the debates and discussions when we do disagree. There might be times when we have to agree to disagree. But I think, the majority of times, when it comes to engagement with the Pacific, we all want to see the outcomes that will lead to a strengthening of our nation and a strengthening of all the nations of the Pacific. We all know and understand how important it is that we engage, with humility and respect, with the nations of the Pacific, whether it be economically, strategically or on the sporting field. In all those ways and many more, we need to make sure that, as a nation and as a parliament, on the whole, we are providing a united front when it comes to that engagement, given how important it is to us today.

We've always seen engagement with the Pacific as something that we need to lead on. Other countries, whether it be the Europeans or the Americans, look to other continents or other parts of the world where they're deemed to need to lead. When it comes to the Pacific, it is our responsibility to make sure that we lead, and lead side by side with the nations of the Pacific, step by step, making sure that we're doing it as equal partners. I know that both sides of the parliament want to do that.

That's why, when it comes to PALM and the PALM aspects of this bill, we will be supporting what the government proposes. When it comes to the PEV, the Pacific engagement visa, we will continue our good faith negotiations to see whether we can reach a compromise which might lead us to be able to support that part of the bill.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make to make my contribution to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023. Australia is closely linked to our Pacific nations socially and economically. Approximately 160,000 Australians were born in Pacific countries and around 270,000 have one parent born in a Pacific country. In my community alone, thousands were born in countries all across the Pacific, and thousands more have parents that were born there. It represents a strong people-to-people connection between us and the Pacific.

Economically, Australia remains one of the biggest development partners and a large trading partner with the Pacific. Migration, such as through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, the PALM scheme, has greatly benefited the economies of Australia and Pacific nations. Since coming into office, the Albanese government has been continually working to grow this close connection. Recently the Australian Defence Force specialists deployed in five countries across the Indo-Pacific region as part of the Pacific Partnership 2023—the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission in the region. In October last year, the Albanese government fulfilled an election commitment to expand aerial surveillance of the Pacific countries' exclusive economic zones under the Pacific Maritime Security Program. The expansion will help countries tackle illegal fishing, which is a practice that drains hundreds of millions of dollars out of Pacific economies every year.

In the area of climate change, which is a challenge that Pacific nations understand better than any other, the Albanese government has expanded climate action both domestically and in the region. The October budget established the Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership to support climate adaptation and resilience projects throughout the Pacific. The Albanese government has advocated to co-host the UN climate change conference in the Pacific to highlight the consequences of climate change in the region, and we've co-sponsored Vanuatu's request to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on climate change. The Albanese government has also increased Australia's official development assistance budget for Pacific countries by $900 million over four years, providing $1.9 billion in development assistance in the 2023-24 year and is providing health care, education, sewerage infrastructure and other critical social services.

The bill being debated here today demonstrates the Albanese government's continued commitment to Australia's unique relationship with our Pacific neighbours, of which we are very proud. We are proud of being one of the most vibrant multicultural societies in the world and being a society that values the contribution of many cultures that call Australia home. We're proud of our strong safety net and educational support that ensure that families are not left behind and give people an opportunity to get ahead. We're proud to be one of the highest-quality agricultural producers in the world. The bill will ensure that we can remain proud of these Australian values and strengthen them.

Beginning with the PALM scheme, this bill sets out to strengthen one of the most important Pacific policies. The PALM scheme is vital for Australian farmers who are facing labour shortages across rural and regional Australia. It enables Pacific and Timor-Leste workers to help fill labour shortages, and it delivers jobs and economic benefits for employees, employers and our agricultural regions. Since the Albanese government came to office, the number of PALM workers has increased from approximately 25,000 to almost 40,000. Earlier this year, the Albanese government moved to strengthen safeguards to stop the exploitation of workers in the PALM scheme, ensuring that migrant workers have pay parity with domestic workers and increasing transparency surrounding accommodation costs and other deductions. Building on these changes, the government has announced a pilot program which will allow PALM workers to bring their families to Australia.

Workers that take part in the PALM scheme move to Australia for years at a time, and that separates them from their families. The pilot program will allow 200 families of PALM workers who have been in the country for at least 12 months to migrate to Australia. The government is taking a measured and sensible approach in the form of a pilot which will enable the government to monitor the new measure and ensure that it works for all parties. With the introduction of this new measure, this bill will set out to expand access to the appropriate benefits for these families. By amending the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999, these families will be eligible for family tax benefit parts A and B, as well as the childcare subsidy. These changes will support families to meet costs of living and ease pressure on households by giving both partners the opportunity to participate in the workforce, because PALM workers, like all workers, are the foundation of our success. They are the ones that support critical industries and sectors such as agriculture and, more recently, aged care. Their importance to our nation and their importance to our close relationships with our Pacific neighbours are recognised in this bill.

Another measure introduced by the Albanese government to strengthen our relations in the Pacific is the new Pacific engagement visa, the PEV. Despite being our closest neighbours, less than one per cent of Australia's permanent migration intake is from Pacific countries. The PEV recognises the growing Pacific and Timor Leste diaspora in Australia, allocating up to 3,000 permanent visas for Pacific nationals annually. The visas will be allocated through a ballot process. If selected, participants will need to apply, as well as meet various eligibility requirements. These requirements will include being aged 18 to 45 to enter the ballot, being selected through that process, have an ongoing job offer, meet English language requirements as well as health and character checks, hold a passport of a participating country and have been born or have a parent born in an eligible country. The PEV was designed in close consultation with various Pacific nations to ensure that it delivers on bringing together our Pacific family and benefiting all of us.

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia’s Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023 will enhance the Pacific engagement visas by expanding various support measures to those visa holders and their families. The bill will also amend A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999, to provide family tax benefit A to PEV holders. It amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and the VET Student Loans Act 2016 to allow PEV holders access to the Higher Education Loan Program and to VET student loans.

Additionally, the bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 to allow access to Austudy as well as to youth allowance for both students and apprentices. These measures are incredibly important because they open up educational opportunities for our Pacific nations and help with the skills shortages that Australia is experiencing in the short-term and the broader labour issues we are facing in the long-term.

Australia is a Pacific nation. We are proudly a part of a vast and diverse Pacific region. The measures detailed in this bill and the amendments they make to strengthen the Pacific engagement visa in the PALM scheme are a demonstration of Australia's commitment to our Pacific family. We will always stand ready as a partner and will continue to support our Pacific family both within and outside Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to sum up the debate here and to thank everyone for their contribution. I really thank everyone for the spirit in which that has been given—by members of the government and members of the opposition and crossbench. I think it's fair to say that there is a total bipartisan commitment to the Pacific and a recognition that Australia is proudly a member of the Pacific family. Our future is in the Pacific. Our interests are dependent on a prosperous, stable Pacific. We are really intent on making that contribution.

I thank the member for Werriwa, in particular, for her last contribution. It summed up the key features of the bill, which I won't go into in any detail. I thank my opposition counterparts, the member for Wannon and the member for Riverina, for their contributions. I won't reflect on the member for Riverina's discussion of his rugby league abilities. I think the less said, the better! But I thank him for his contribution, his commitment to the Pacific and his powerful oratory that covered the really positive impact Pacific workers are making in our country and in his electorate of Riverina and its industries, and which also highlighted their selfless sacrifice in the Lismore floods. The member for Wannon was very right to say we should approach the Pacific with humility and respect. That's what this government is intent on doing.

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme is going from strength to strength. We have around 40,000 workers in the economy filling labour shortages in Australia. I had the privilege of meeting 17 Tuvaluan workers, when I was in their country last week, who are about to come to Australia to be part of the 500-strong aged-care worker pilot. They were keen to come across. They talked about their respect for their seniors, their reverence for their seniors and how they were really excited to bring those values to look after senior Australians. So not only is it a win for Australia; it's a win for those workers. On average, a long-term PALM worker on the up to four-year visa will send home A$15,000 a year. That remittance is massive. It's in the context of a region where between a third and half of all Pacific islanders live on A$1,000 a year or less; it's in the context of Pacific island nations that depend upon remittance flows. For some countries in the Pacific, up to 43 per cent of their GDP is remittances. This is vital cash going back to sustain economies. It also sustains communities. It keeps communities going. It lifts families out of poverty. It also gives great skills to workers.

I met with a Timor-Leste worker at a strawberry farm in northern Tasmania. Her way of counting the strawberry punnet is to think of every punnet as an equivalent brick to go to the house that she is building in Timor-Leste. It's a great way of thinking about how her contribution to our economy is building a future for her and her family. I met with returned meat workers from the Solomon Islands, one of whom was starting a business because of the money and skills he learned in Australia. So the PALM scheme is incredibly important.

I will say again that we are very aware that some Pacific countries are very conscious about how many people are coming to Australia. I will re-emphasise that every Pacific country chooses how many people come to Australia and who comes to Australia. That's very, very important to re-state. The trial of 200 families on the PALM long-term visa coming to Australia is really important to deal with some of the issues that arise when workers are away from their families for four years. I'm very excited about how that pilot will go and to see the results. It was an election commitment from the Australian Labor Party at the last election. It was part of the most comprehensive Pacific policy a party has ever taken to an election, and we are really delighted to be implementing that election commitment.

Another election commitment was the Pacific engagement visa, which, for the first time in the history of this country, is allocating a specific part of our permanent migration stream of 3,000 spots to one region—in this case, the Pacific—to build the Pacific diaspora. People-to-people links with the Pacific are critical to our future. You had to have seen what seemed like 100,000 Australians of Samoan heritage out on the streets in the week leading up to the Rugby League World Cup final last year to see the diaspora in this country and the proud roots they've put into our community. The PEV is intended to do that and to steepen that. It's a very important scheme. It's welcomed by the Pacific. In most instances, they are very enthusiastic for the scheme to start and for Pacific islanders to permanently migrate to this country. At the moment, only one per cent of our permanent migration intake is people of Pacific heritage. That is too low. We want to grow that. We want them to make a contribution to our society and to build upon the great numbers already here.

I thank everyone for their contribution. These bills are important. They're critical parts of this government's Pacific agenda about being the partner of choice for the Pacific, being a proud member of the Pacific family and rebuilding our connections to that incredibly important region, a region vital to our future prosperity. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.