Guest-Workers for Australia: Win-Win, Token Gesture Or Moral Hazard‪?‬

THE RUDD GOVERNMENT'S TRIAL SEASONAL PACIFIC WORKER SCHEME The lobbying of Australian government to allow temporary unskilled guest-workers into Australia that has intensified over recent years has finally borne fruit. Australia's long-standing refusal of guest-workers has ended with announcements by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the Pacific Leaders' Forum in Niue, and Agricultural Minister Tony Burke in Australia, of a three-year pilot seasonal worker scheme for the horticultural industry. Under the proposed trial, 2500 workers from Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea will be given three-year visas.' These visas will allow entry for fruit-picking and other horticulture work in designated regional areas (initially possibly Swan Hill in Victoria and Griffith in New South Wales) for up to seven months in any 12 month period.