Pacific Research Program News Today

After months of uncertainty, the legislation required to implement the Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) passed through the Australian Senate.

While much of the recent focus in the Pacific region has been on the security implications of growing geopolitical competition, less attention has been paid to crime and personal safety and how these more parochial, everyday issues impact the stability of Pacific Island countries and the well-bei...

There has been a quick recovery in temporary labour migration flows to Australia and New Zealand, Charlotte Bedford reveals.

At different times during the first 15 years of the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme’s operation, there have been concerns about whether employment opportunities are being fairly shared between new recruits and return workers, or whether RSE jobs are predominantly given to return workers...

The call for Australia to offer more labour mobility access to the Pacific has been a common theme of commentators (e.g. from the Lowy Interpreter and ASPI Strategist), as a key part of a response to recent geopolitical maneuvering in the Pacific.

Pacific labour mobility has received an unprecedented level of attention in this year’s Australian Federal election campaign. Australian anxieties about Chinese influence in the Solomon Islands have dominated the headlines.

At the time of Tonga’s volcanic eruption and tsunami on 14 January 2022, there were an estimated 150,000 Tongans living overseas. Of these, close to 5,000 Tongan workers were employed across Australia and New Zealand under their respective Pacific temporary labour schemes.

The Kiribati government closed their international border late in March 2020, to keep their island population of approximately 140,000 people safe from COVID-19.

Stephen Howes The sugar museum in Mauritius (Brian Scott/Picture: SUPPLIED By STEPHEN HOWES, SHERMAN SURANDIRAN Both Mauritius and Fiji are remotely located islands situated far from global business centres, both developed as sugar plantation economies, but their economies have taken drastically different paths over the past half a century. Last year the World Bank reclassified Mauritius as a high-income country. Its 2019 income (GNI per capita) for the first time exceeded the $US12,535 ($F25,3...