Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a bouquet and a brickbat. I want to thank the government for putting in place the Pacific Banking Guarantee Bill, because I think it will ensure that Australian financial institutions support our friends in the blue Pacific, make sure they have a presence in those Pacific island nations and, hopefully, make sure they do the right thing when it comes to the remittances for those Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme workers when they go back home, or indeed when they're working here in Australia and sending their money back home—the fact that most of that money, if not all of it, should be going back to their families and villages, which benefit so greatly from it. The fruits of the labour of those PALM workers should be being realised in those Pacific island nations, and I specifically refer to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and of course Timor-Leste.

The PALM scheme is a good scheme. And here is the brickbat: you can't get it all your own way, Labor. I am aghast at the fact that, in its first term of government, Labor wanted to unionise the PALM scheme. I say that because Labor wanted to force a paid minimum of 30 hours a week, every week. Members from regional areas know that seasonally, and for a variety of other reasons, the work just isn't there to provide for a paid minimum of 30 hours each and every week. And we saw that the number of PALM workers in agriculture fell by more than 20 per cent, from 21,915 workers in July 2023 to 16,705 in September 2024, on the back of this unionisation by Labor—because they've got to make friends with the union movement; they've got to do what the union people tell them to do.

The government backflipped in May 2024 when I belled the cat on this, and they enabled 120 hours to be guaranteed but averaged over four weeks until 1 July 2025. That date is important, because that date has come and that date has gone, and we are now seeing farmers not having, as the shadow minister quite correctly pointed out, clarity on this very important issue. Where does the government stand when it comes to hourly work, weekly work or whatever the case might be? Farmers need clarity, and so do the workers. There is no certainty for farmers or industry going forward as to what the rules will be. That is incumbent upon this government. It's good enough to spend $600 million on a Pasifika Rugby League team in the National Rugby League competition, and I'm not against that policy idea, because I think what we have that our friends further to the north will never have are those Fs that are so important when it comes to our Pacific friends: faith, family and football. They are going to be so important going forward. They don't play rugby league in China, but we play it here and we play it very well, and PNG is the only country in the world which has rugby league as its national sport.

We should be doing everything we can to make sure that we maintain those bonds of friendship, those strong diplomatic ties. Call it soft diplomacy. Call it whatever you like. But nobody loves their rugby league more than those people in the Pacific islands. Unfortunately they all go for Queensland in the State of Origin, but, even that aside, we need to foster those relationships and we need to make sure that those Pacific island nations—those nine I mentioned and Timor-Leste—understand that Australia is their greatest friend. Let's not muddy the waters by having measures in place in the PALM scheme which are onerous or going to deter workers or Australian farmers from making sure that those strong bonds and economic ties continue long into the future.

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