Workplace Minister flags he could make further changes to PALM scheme to curb exploitation

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The workplace minister has flagged he could make further changes to a flagship Pacific workers program to crack down on employers doing the wrong thing. Murray Watt says that there have been "far too many" instances of exploitation in the PALM scheme.

Transcript

00:00The PALM scheme is really important.

00:04It's really important not just for farmers, which rely on Pacific workers to fill labour

00:08gaps as well as increasingly other industries as well, but it's also important to the Pacific

00:13because it's a really critical source of income for Pacific island countries and also for

00:18families which often rely on remittances from schemes like PALM in order to keep afloat.

00:24Now this essentially brings some 30,000 workers to Australia every year to do work that needs

00:30to be done in sectors that might otherwise struggle to get workers.

00:35And there's no doubt that there have been over the years quite a few critics of the

00:38way that some employers, not all by any stretch of the imagination, but the way that some

00:43employers have abused and exploited workers who take part in it.

00:47We've seen instances, for example, just this week of the President of Timor-Leste complaining

00:52that too many workers were being essentially soaked, they were being forced to pay too

00:56much money for things like accommodation and for transport, and his argument is that that

01:02money should be paid directly to those workers instead.

01:05And you've also had the unions, in particular the ACTU, mounting a really forceful argument

01:10that too often bosses are too quick to look for loopholes in the scheme, to exploit workers,

01:16handing them not enough work to get by, charging them too much for accommodation and transport.

01:21Now interestingly, Murray Watt, the Minister for Workplace Relations, was asked about some

01:26of this recent criticism this morning, and he was pretty blunt in his responses.

01:31He said there had been too many instances of abuse, and also said that the government

01:35was looking at potentially taking further actions to change the settings in the scheme

01:40to make sure it was harder for employers to do the wrong thing.

01:43Let's take a listen to Murray Watt speaking earlier today.

01:47Now we have seen unfortunately far too many abuses of the PALM scheme, and it's important

01:52for Australia and our reputation that when people come to work in Australia, they don't

01:57get exploited and they get treated fairly.

02:01Unfortunately I am aware of some examples of that not happening in this very region,

02:04across Bundaberg, and we've seen the Fair Work Ombudsman take action against particular

02:08employers and particular labour hire firms who have done the wrong thing, and that's

02:12exactly the way it should be.

02:14We actually have made changes to the PALM scheme since coming to office a couple of

02:17years ago to try to reduce the exploitation that we've seen.

02:21We brought in, for example, minimum amounts of pay that need to be paid to people to make

02:26sure that they do have money in their pockets.

02:28We've made changes around the housing requirements, but what I can say is that wherever there

02:34is exploitation going on of PALM workers or local workers, as a Labor government, we will

02:39continue to take action and we're open to further changes.

02:42So Murray, what they're saying, he is aware of some instances of this exploitation and

02:47abuse of workers, but Stephen, do we have any sense of how deep these problems actually go?

02:52Look, in all honesty, Ruby, it's really difficult to get a complete grip on exactly how deep

02:57these problems run.

02:58There's no doubt that there have been instances of abuse.

03:01What's not easy to work out is whether this is endemic to the scheme or whether it is

03:05something that's more occasional.

03:08Academic work on this is really split.

03:09Some academics say that they've done surveys of the workers and they're confident that

03:13when you look at the way the scheme operates, it's not too bad at all, that accommodation

03:18isn't too expensive, that most workers are happy with their accommodation and happy with

03:22the way that they're treated.

03:24Other academics, though, who have done other forms of surveys say that no, there are actually

03:27deep-seated problems and that exploitation is, in some ways, at the heart of this scheme.

03:33There's no doubt that the money that this scheme brings in is invaluable and important,

03:38but just how deep these problems run is something that at this stage, at least to an outside

03:43observer, is difficult to say for certain.

03:46So some conflicting data.

03:47One thing we do know is that we have more and more workers leaving the scheme.

03:51What did the Minister have to say about that?

03:53Yeah, this has been an undeniable problem over the last year or so in particular.

03:57Now one in ten workers in Parma are essentially absconding or leaving the scheme.

04:02They're doing that for various reasons.

04:04Murray Watt says one of the main reasons is that sometimes workers just aren't getting

04:08the work that they need to pay their accommodation expenses and also send money home.

04:13The problem is, as the ABC's revealed previously, those people who do leave the scheme are often

04:17left destitute and homeless.

04:19Now Murray Watt says that he believes that the government can land on a solution to this,

04:24that they're working on finding solutions to this problem, but it's no doubt that it

04:28is one that has been growing over the last year or so.

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