Foreign Minister Penny Wong today announced a new era in engagement in the Pacific, which includes a new permanent residency pathway and seasonal workers being able to bring their family with them to Australia (neither were permissible under the previous government). A win for the Pacific …and humanity!

To quote from her speech, which you can read in full here, she said:

Australia will do more, and will do it differently.

We will ensure that those Pacific Islanders who come to work in Australia are treated fairly – with better conditions.

We will allow workers to bring their families.

And we will create the pacific engagement visa – to provide a pathway to permanency for 3,000 members of our Pacific family per year.

But ultimately our relationship with our Pacific family is not a suite of initiatives. It cannot be counted in dollars or MOUs.

It is so much more.

During their election campaign, the Labor party pledged to introduce a new visa pathway for Pacific Islanders. The new Foreign Minister Penny Wong reaffirmed this commitment during her speech to the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, saying “We will create a Pacific Engagement Visa to provide a pathway to permanency for three-thousand members of our Pacific family per year”.

So how will it work?

The proposed Pacific Engagement Visa will mimic New Zealand’s lottery-style system, by which applicants are entered into a ballot pool. Each year, a set number of successful applicants will be drawn. There will be a quota of successful applicants from each country.

What will I need in order to apply?

Though the details are yet to be finalised, Labor has stated it envisions the pathway will be available to those between 18 to 45 years old, have some level of English, and have a job offer in Australia. Relevantly, Labor has also committed to covering some airfare costs of relocation, which had previously fallen to Australian employers.

Professor Stephen Howes, the director of the Development Policy Center at the Australian National University, said:

You are not advantaged by having more skills, so say, a doctor, and a bus driver, they can both apply for the lottery, so that is a good protection against the risk of brain drain.

There are more details to come as the Albanese government work to develop and realise the commitments made during their election campaign, so watch this space.