Buren Itintau lives to work. He is far from a unique case among Pacific workers supporting Australia’s agricultural and meat industry. For them, a life can be lived on a 5km radius between their accommodation and a meat processing factory in regional NSW.
Burenteweia “Buren” Itintau is originally from Kiribati. A very different place to Wagga Wagga where he lives now with other Pacific Islanders in a road-side motel privatised for them. The practical option until he and some mates can find a shared house.
Buren is among the 35,000 Pacific workers living in Australia through the PALM scheme (Pacific Australia Labour Mobility). Through this agreement, workers from the Pacific can come and work in Australia on temporary visas. They are an integral part of Australia’s Pacific step, which also include trade agreements to develop economic ties in the region. In between the thousands of mobile workers and the billions in trades, human stories can get lost in the process.
Pacific workers at the forefront of Australia’s economic step-up in the Pacific
When it comes to Labour mobility, the Pacific workforce represents an essential pool of workers for the Australian agricultural, fishing and meat industry. The PALM scheme allows workers from 9 Pacific Islands nations and Timor-Leste to fill skill shortages in Australia. Official figures show they work across 28 industries, notably agriculture (70% of workers), food processing, hospitality, and aged care. Attached to the scheme, Islanders can stay up to four years in the country. Proof of its popularity, the scheme attracted 24,870 Pacific seasonal and temporary workers in 2019. By December 2022, this number had risen to 35,100. “In a region where more than one third of people live on less than $1,000 per year, long term PALM workers send home an average of $15,000 each”, according to the program’s webpage.
As such, the program found its popularity among Pacific islanders willing to relocate. It even appears that it contributes to improving Australia’s standing and soft-power in the Pacific. Greg Makuta, National Coordinator in charge of Community Connections at “The Salvation Army”, interacts daily with participants of the scheme. He supports Pacific workers in Australia regarding administrative issues and finding community connexion during their stay down under. Although he underlines they can face challenges, he gives a clear answer when asked if the PALM program strengthen the links between Australia and the Pacific Islands? “Oh yeah absolutely! It gets more Pacific Islanders visible in Australia. They contribute to the economy and are valuable”.
Greg is certainly passionate about the well-being of Pacific workers in the country. He meets many of them in a determining period of their lives and believes the agreement is beneficial for all parties. For Australia it provides workers in regional area. And Pacific islanders develop new skills and transfer money back home.
However, as workers are asked to be in relatively isolated areas for up to four years, surely the program has to consider more than purely economic reasons.
Two years ago, Pacific workers entered a dispute with their employers over their pay not matching their living expenses in Bundaberg, Queensland. Bessie Bowry was asked to replace the country liaison for Kiribati and facilitate contact between employers and employee. She is herself from Kiribati and has been helping PALM workers ever since. She points out that very concrete communication and cultural issues that have to be considered.
It starts with the recruitment process in the country of origin. She mentions Kiribati where the government pushes people to join the PALM program as employment in the archipelagos is scarce. But as a result, the vetting process, which occur in those country of origin, “is not as thorough as it should be”. Notably regarding language level, which lead to more difficult communication with employers in Australia. Culturally, Bessie worries about the gaps between cultures and norms. She tells me directly: “Sometimes, they don’t understand don’t drink and drive”. In their hometowns, everyone knows everyone and apologising to the police officer is enough.
Indeed, language appears to a very concrete element that can easily become a barrier. Bessie narrated the examples of Pacific workers having to communicate with their employers using hand gestures. She argues for upstream preparation, before workers arrive in Australia. “A lot of explanation needs to be done [before workers move to Australia]. Clear instructions should be given to workers upon arrival, whether in English or the language they speak”. Typically, Bessie helps Kiribats to adapt to the change. That’s how she met Buren, a Pacific worker in Wagga Wagga who’s been working in NZ and then Australia for years. Away from his family in Kiribati.
A life in Australia
Wagga Wagga is a New South Wales regional town, the biggest of the Riverina region. Its outskirts host multiple agricultural and industrial activity. Beyond this, the Pacific Ocean remains the furthest thing from mind. But within a five-minute drive from an industrial complex, that’s where you can expect to find a cohort of Pacific workers supporting the industries.
The Red Steer Hotel Motel, north of Wagga, is announced as closed on Google Maps. Indeed, it is exclusively used by a dozen of Pacific workers employed in the nearby suburb of Bomen.
I was there to meet with Buren, a 42-year-old man from Kiribati. Former chauffeur, now working in the meat industry. Walking to meet him, I see a couple other men sitting around the courtyard.
Unsurprisingly, and according to Lindy Kanan of the ANU Department of Pacific Affairs, 80% of the Pacific labour scheme is male. Workers typically support agricultural work and the meat industry, using heavy machinery. Some lighter agricultural works such as fruit-picking are more open to backpackers on work-holiday visas.
That is why Pacific Islanders tend to work together and form little communities where members know each other well. Regarding housing, they tend to stay in-between nationalities, but different Pacific countries often interact at work.
Work is the common factor that brought them all to Australia. The workplace is where they meet a social pool of people like them: from the Pacific.
Buren is one of them. He lives in a motel that he considers “not a great place to stay” in the sense that it cannot fully be a home. With 4 other I-Kiribatis, they are looking for a shared house.
So far, his situation his about practicability regarding work: the factory he is employed at is five minutes down the road. There, he works as a “loader”, using forklifts to organise the warehouse and transfer food and materials containers.
This type of intense work would face a labour shortage if it were to rely on a domestic workforce. Pacific workers like Buren are willing to relocate in regional area and support these industries. According to data compiled by the ABC, in April 2023, 72% of PALM workers were in the agriculture, horticulture and fishing industry. 24% in meat processing, 2,2% in hospitality, and 1,6% in age care. In return for this work, they earn higher wages than they would otherwise in their homeland and henceforth can support their families back home.
Behind these figures, intense personal stories can be found. For Buren and his mates, they joined the program back home in Kiribati where the government arranged employment in Australia for them. They had to sit an English test, then a fitness one to gauge their abilities for manual work. After some extra English courses in Kiribati, Buren left his country once more. Indeed, before relocating in Wagga, he had worked in New Zealand for ten years. Occasionally going back home to see his wife and growing family.
Now two years in Australia, this has been an important personal sacrifice. He lives to work and sends money to Kiribati in order to support his family that he misses. Today, he makes around $24 an hour, with extras for commissions when he handles the forklift. In all this work, he went back to Kiribati once in the past two years. There, he has four kids aged between five and seventeen.
“I am mostly talking with my family on my spare time” he confides to me. He does not mention going to the movies, reading books or hasn’t been hiking around Wagga Wagga. He has occasional social events with other Pacific workers, but his life revolves largely around work. And inside Wagga. Just once, he drove out to Sydney to see cousins.
Buren confirms that he is not the only one to miss his family. In fact, Pacific workers find comfort precisely in the fact that they can be surrounded by people from their countries of origin.
Pacific workers in Australia also need cultural support to adapt to their new lives in the country. That is what Bessie Bowry, a senior member of the NSW Kiribati Community tells me. In her years working with Pacific people, Bessie got the understanding that it is positive for them to maintain some cultural links. But she also finds that Pacific islanders tend to stay in-between themselves. Although different Pacific nations are mixed together through the PALM scheme, different nationalities tend to stick to themselves. According to Bessie, 90% of workers would rather talk to their own. But she believes it is better to create a mix in order to foster broader sociability. Currently however, it is more convenient for employers not to mix workers of different countries and languages. This way, they can communicate smoothly at least in-between themselves.
For Buren, this administrative and working part of the PALM scheme seems to go smoothly. “They look after you very well”, he tells me about his current employers. He is notably supported regarding administrative documentation and is especially satisfied with his current job that he considers much better than fruit-picking. “It is not outside, under the sun, and you get the opportunity to work every day”. In his case, 4 days a week, sometimes over the weekend. In addition, he gets to develop new skills such as driving heavy machinery. If given the chance, he will reiterate the experience in Kiribati, where he originally used to work as a driver for officials.
“When you talk to me, you find out that my mind is just focused on work”
Among all that he tells me about his work, I try to know more about his social life. An aspect that cannot be ignored when one is called to work in a relatively isolated area with few means of transportation. But everything in the conversation with Buren brought us back to work. About once a week, he catches up with work mates and they talk about their lives and their jobs. When I asked about the things he likes in Australia: “work” is the answer. The possibility to earn extra money and support his family back home. “When you talk to me, you find out that my mind is just focused on work” he says with a smile.
In Buren’s experience, Australia gets a positive image among Pacific workers through the PALM program. “I have nothing bad to say about it, it’s very good, we’re being taken good care of”. He also thinks about staying in Australia long-term. He will participate in a new visa lottery allowing some Pacific workers to stay permanently in Australia. The Pacific Engagement visa legislation has been introduced to Parliament in October this year. He believes a majority of his colleagues plan to do the same and try their luck with this lottery. However, if his family cannot be attached to this visa, he will return to Kiribati.
Pacific Islanders in a broader Pacific context
The PALM scheme is part of a broader context in the Australia/Pacific relation. Notably when Pacific workers project themselves towards the future through new visas and opportunities that arises.
Overall, the PALM scheme allows visa holders to stay and work in Australia for up to four years. But many are looking for more permanent options to stay long-term in Australia. In fact, there has been a recent spike in PALM workers joining protection visas, allowing them to stay in the country for up to 11 years with working rights, according to Angus Thompson for the Sydney Morning Herald. Protection visas received 1700 applications from Pacific workers over the 2022-2023 financial year. As opposed to 1000 the year before. Underlining here that there are some issues to be fixed for the PALM program to retain workers.
The current federal government is well aware of this demand for permanent migration from Pacific islanders. The Australian government has developed a new permanent visa: the Pacific Engagement visa, to bring 3000 Pacific nationals annually. Granting them PR (Permanent residency) and therefore no restriction on where they can work and live. Visa applications will be opened to PALM workers.
Visa holders will be determined through a lottery among eligible candidates. Conditions of entry include being aged 18 to 45 and meeting basic English language requirements. Then, selected participants will have to secure a job in Australia in order to have their visa granted.
In that regard, the Australian Government plans on establishing “a service in the Pacific to connect successful applicants with employers in Australia, providing access to a variety of roles at a range of skill levels.” Highlighting a desire to match workers will labour-shortage jobs. On the immigration webpage, reasons cited for the creation of this visa include deeper integration with the Pacific, climate change, and the development of greater cultural and business exchanges in the region.
Before people’s movement, greater cooperation in the region started with trade agreements from the 1980’s. Today, the PACER Plus agreement stands as the main framework for trade of goods and services in the Pacific. The Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER+) aims at fostering trade cooperation in the Pacific by progressively creating a more open market between Pacific countries. The deal came into effect in 2020 with 8 Pacific countries joining in. Effectively, Australian and New Zealanders tariffs on participating Pacific countries will be set at zero. Those nations plan to reciprocate over the following 3 to 35 years depending on individual countries.
Drafters of the deal argue that Pacific countries can find many perks in joining this deal. Both for their workforce, as Pacific islanders are trained in new skills, and for their economies as it gives them access to a larger market. Regarding the first aspect, the PACER+ deal includes the goal of “enhancing financial literacy and business management skills”. For instance among local tourism operators. In August 2023, the program funded business training for Solomon tourism sector professionals in order for them to better run activities and attract tourists. Regarding a bigger market in the region, Franck Sioneholo, Economics and Planning Director and the PACER Plus national focal point for Niue argues that for this nation, “international trade and economic integration is fundamental to overcoming the challenges inherent to our smallness and remoteness from key markets”.
It appears to be a bit harder to find opposing voices on this treaty, but I reached out to Adam Wolfenden, a “Trade Justice Campaigner” for the Pacific Network on Globalisation. He describes that his job is to monitor and work with the various negotiations involving Pacific countries. He is “A bit of a watchdog on trade in the region”, by highlighting the impacts of these agreements. Wolfenden criticises the deal. He argues Australia and New Zealand are overly favoured by its conditions.
While tariffs are advantageous for Pacific countries, the ANZ market doesn’t need many Pacific products, but this deal allows them to export greatly in the region. In fact, the number of Pacific exports to the ANZ market that meet standards are actually limited according to Wolfenden. Further, Pacific Island countries’ economies have to be open to foreign investments as a condition of this deal; a reason why so many countries have not yet ratified. Today, the combined GDP of the region stands at AUD$2,002 trillion. 85% of it due to Australia, making it a dominating player. Because Australia and New Zealand dominate trade in the region, removing barriers seems to be at their advantage.
Adam Wolfenden points out how the framework of this deal were narrow from the beginning. He states that PACER+ was triggered in reaction to Pacific islands starting negotiations with the European Union. And that these two countries believed they had a right of way to be privileged partners in the region. “They feel that they deserve first shot”.
For the record, Fiji and PNG are not part of the agreement while constituting around 80-85% of the Pacific Islands economies. “I argue it speaks volume to the quality of the agreement”.
As such, Australia would be the main beneficiaries of those trade conditions while simultaneously contributing to the movement of working aged people away from the islands and into a new culture.
Indeed, Pacific countries can feel left out in this “Pacific family”.
While countries such as Kiribati seem to encourage a movement of workers in return for international transfers, other countries such as Samoa do not only see perks. Samoa's Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa recently criticised the PALM program as making Pacific islands mere “outposts” to provide labourers for developed nations.
A senior member of a Pacific cultural centre tells me off the record how, in effect, “Australia is taking working age men away from the Islands to work in the fields of Australia”. Herself from Samoa originally, she tells me about many boats left untouched on the Samoan coastline as a result of workers having moved to Australia for a better pay.
Some of them will stay in Australia long term. And look for community connexion there. Notably to be reminded that they are not alone in this new adventure and that other people are facing similar issues. That is the impression one can get when visiting the Matavatai cultural centre in the Sydney suburb of Lurnea. This building full of light combines dance studios, classes and board rooms where Pacific Islanders are transmitting their passions. Walking across, I see mostly kids coming for a class and adult members of the staff. Maryjane Schwenke, founder and co-director of the Matavai centre confirms that most of their activities, but not all, are aimed at children under eighteen.
"I grew up in Australia over my high-school years. I do understand what it’s like to not really fit in or feel like you belong"
As a Samoan, she reminds me of her culture’s deep connexion to land. “We have to practice our culture on a foreign land, it can be quite confusing for young people”. But she also recognises that it is more difficult to organise community events outside of Sydney in the regions. Still, her hope is that Pacific Island cultures can remain strong, even when Australia is dominating the region economically.
The balance between Pacific workers’ aspiration and their homelands’ needs has to be found as Australia tries to strengthen its link with the Pacific. Especially as more economic integration goes hand in hand with people’s mobility. For now, the Australian government is open to go beyond temporary visas and offer permanent opportunities to Pacific Islanders willing to work in Australia. For so many Pacific islanders like Buren and his family, it will be up to a lottery.
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