The Federal Opposition opposes the Government's Pacific Guest Worker
scheme while it considers that a range of important questions remain
unanswered. There are indeed many questions, but the opposition appears to be missing those relating to the rights of the Pacific workers themselves.
The plan, which involves a three year trial, follows many requests from both Pacific nations and potential employers in Australia. Pacific leaders see such schemes as a key response to the urgent challenge posed by rising sea levels.
President Anote Tong of Kiribati visited the Edmund Rice Centre in Sydney recently. He described labour access as 'one of the strategies that low-lying island nations are calling for, to help them prepare for the inevitable loss of land and livelihood that climate change is bringing them'.
Meanwhile federal member for Riverina Kay Hull, and other opposition MPs from rural areas, see the scheme as a welcome response to the acute shortage of willing workers available to the horticulture industry.
The usually compassionate opposition leader Brendan Nelson argued that Australia does not need 'dirt poor Pacific islanders'. Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Andrew Robb and Shadow Immigration Minister Chris Ellison spelled out the position in a statement that insisted that Australia should not rush into such a scheme without asking questions.
But the questions they ask are the wrong ones. They stem from fears that the guest workers would outstay their welcome. Notably absent is anything specifying a strategy to ensure that the workers are subject to fair pay and conditions consistent with the standard enjoyed by resident Australian workers.
Nor is there recognition that the scheme could be linked to a climate change response. On the contrary, they appear as out of touch as their leader, in their disingenuous concern not to 'deplete the pool of necessary young workers in villages in these Pacific nations'.
While employers argue that it is more costly to bring workers from overseas, grateful Pacific islanders are likely to be willing to work for less than award wages under conditions that do not meet regulatory requirements. Trade unions rightly insist that support for the scheme requires strict compliance to relevant labour pay and safety regulations, to ensure the treatment of guest workers equals that of resident workers.
Although they are desperate to find solutions for their people in the face of the rising sea level, Pacific island leaders expect nothing less. As President Tong said, 'We want to be able