Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner raises concern over removal of minimum hours guarantee for PALM workers

The Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner has expressed serious concern about the Government’s decision to walk back its commitment to guarantee a minimum of 30 paid hours per week for Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers.

The Government had previously committed to introduce a 30-hour weekly guarantee, with transitional measures put in place to provide 120 hours of work averaged over four weeks. However, the Government has now decided to make this averaging arrangement permanent.

This means that employers can allocate low hours of work in some weeks and still comply with the overall monthly requirement. Worker representatives and Pacific communities have warned that this approach may leave PALM workers without enough income in certain weeks to meet their living costs or drive them to seek unlawful work outside the scheme, where they are very susceptible to exploitation.

“Fluctuating or insufficient hours of paid work may place financial strain on workers, create uncertainty and lead some to disengage from the PALM scheme altogether. This greatly increases their exposure to risks of exploitation or modern slavery,” the Commissioner said. “Choosing not to implement the weekly guarantee is inconsistent with other recent measures taken by Government to protect the rights and dignity of migrant workers in Australia.”

The Government has demonstrated a commitment to addressing and preventing the exploitation of temporary migrant workers by introducing measures such as the Workplace Justice Visa and the Strengthening Reporting Protections pilot, and the criminalisation of the intentional underpayment of wages in the Fair Work Act.

“Reinstating the weekly minimum hours guarantee would reaffirm the government’s commitment to protecting PALM workers’ access to regular work and pay and reducing the risk of exploitation,” the Commissioner said.