Comments

Thanks Satish, I definitely agree on the idea of a review. Terence

Excellent analysis, Terence. Agree that the challenge highlighted by this statement: "The more Australian aid is focused on countering China and shoring up allegiances with political elites in Pacific countries, the less likely it is to actually help people in need" would also significantly undermine aid effectiveness in the region.

Question: Has the federal government given longer dated targets for PALM visa numbers. I heard the number 50,000 mentioned, but haven't been able to verify.

Thanks for this blog Terrence. Agree that a comprehensive review of aid, very much in the spirit of the 1984 Jackson and the 1997 Simon reviews, is well overdue.

Thank you Scott, That's a very good question. The most clean and tidy solution, it seems to me, would be to recreate a semi-autonomous aid program. However, I am not working in the trenches, and my academic perspective might well lead me to under-appreciate the difficulties doing this. In terms of function, all that is required is a structure that allows people to build a real career within DFAT focusing on aid, and also which allows aid workers a proper place at the decision-making table at posts. My guess is that there are a wide range of solutions which would more or less afford this. I presume the best way to choose which of these should be enacted would be a very careful independent review. Thanks again Terence

Thank you Juliet.

Thanks for this well-considered blog. Spot on (as usual).

An excellent piece of analysis. Additional funding can potentially be put to good use; however, government needs strategy and organisational capacity to effectively use this additional funding. Terrance, I would be interested in hearing more about your views on any required structural changes. Regards

Thanks Stephen An unfortunate summary of how the aid Budget(s) were cut, essentially in the name of domestic Australian Budget priorities. Not in the cause of delivering aid that achieved its objectives. The most disgracelu examples have been (1) abolishing AusAID, then (2) abolishing the ODE and IEC. This was despite the former Prime Minister Morrision subsequently promising to embed program evaluation (back) into the APS (following the Thodey Review) – from which it had been allowed to lapse in the Howard years after 1996. The Department of Finance's Resource Management Guide 130 on APS program evaluation (https://www.finance.gov.au/government/managing-commonwealth-resources/planning-and-reporting/commonwealth-performance-framework/evaluation-commonwealth-rmg-130) is only the beginning of this embedding. It can all too-easily be ignored by time-poor and/or indifferent APS management. More to the point, I do suggest that it is not the amount of dollars in any aid budget that should be the target. It's what those dollars achieve – demonstrably. Like children vaccinated; clean water projects delivered; maternal mortality reduced (as just some examples in the Health area with which I'm familiar). Again to the point, I do not recall any Foreign Minister publicising such results and highlighting just exactly why Australia delivers foreign aid. And thus creating a domestic constituency for this Budget and Australia's part in reducing poverty and hunger in the developing world. In 2017, just under 700 million people globally were living in extreme poverty on the World Bank's revised figure of US$2.15 a day. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2022/05/02/fact-sheet-an-adjustment-to-global-poverty-lines. As Scott Bayley has suggested, Australia's programs for reducing these poverty levels need to be removed from Ministerial and political priorities and handed to independent experts.

Great insight indeed. My argument is, if you are intending to bring in families for those PLS workers that have families, at least lobby the respective industries to raise the wage rate instead of opting for the Award rates, or pay the worker EBA or create a total new instrument of remuneration. It’s just unfair to have two legal remuneration instruments Award vs EBA and pay the PLS workers who does the same work and contributes to the same output for the business Award rates. How is that viable for a worker that has a wife and one child? I plead those that are at the forefront of this to carefully consider the options and have at least a few existing PLS workers that have families interviewed or consulted to gather more information.

Excellent review, Stephen. I found this to be a very useful and fair summary of developments in Australian policy with regard to labour mobility from the Pacific under the Coalition and Labor Governments over the past two decades. While there has been nothing less that a revolution in Australian policy relating to temporary entry of workers from selected Pacific states, New Zealand's labour mobility policies relating to Pacific peoples have changed very little since the introduction of the RSE scheme in 2007. As New Zealand emerges from the disruption to labour mobility caused by border closures there is going to have to be a re-invention of the RSE scheme if it is to remain an attractive option given the way the PALM scheme is evolving. There has been a lot of excellent work by Devpol staff and research associates on labour mobility over the past few years. Hopefully this can be sustained going ahead.

In welcoming Labour's strategy to ward of PRC influence in the Pacific region, the Australian national food security crisis must not be overlooked. The Australian Farmers Federation has in its Roadmap to year 2030 earmarked a gross growth up to AUD 30 billion CAGR. To achieve this semi skilled farm workers from ASEAN countries is part of the National and Global food security scheme. ASEAN countries needs to be prompted to engage in sustainable agricultural practices to mitigate climate change and carbon credit savings. Australia has to grab both end of the stick for a holistic approach. By fine tuning the sc 403 .281 Asian Farm Workers Visa scheme, in which only proven farmers and farmworkers are made eligible for the Farm Workers Visa, on a willing worker-wiling employer basis, one that is removed from dubious ASEAN countries bureaucracy, the Labour government will achieve a wholesome goals. It is not either this or that, it is each scheme running concurrently complimenting each other to serve national interest ancd that of the ASEAN agriculture industry.