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'Scared' and 'helpless': Rayasi's dream of working in Australia was not what she envisioned
More than 7,000 workers have absconded from the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme over the past five years, some due to poor working conditions, exploitation and abuse. But the choice to walk has left many in limbo.
Published 27 April 2025 6:30am
By Mridula Amin
Source: SBS News
Image: Thousands of workers have dropped out of Australia's PALM scheme. Rayasi is one of them. (SBS News / Mridula Amin)
Rayasi came to Australia full of hope. She did not expect to wind up injured and undocumented less than a year later.
The 42-year-old Fijian national had prayed for months for a place in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme: a temporary visa program designed to plug Australia's labour shortages by recruiting workers from nine Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste.
When she finally got the call in 2022 offering a four-year position at a meat factory in Melbourne, she accepted immediately.
"I was excited. Who wouldn't want to get out of Fiji given the [economic] situation back at home? I was making under $200 a week working full-time, as the minimum wage is quite low," she says.
In Australia, Rayasi could earn around five times her usual wage, and planned to use it to support her family back home. She has asked SBS News to blur her image to protect her privacy.
Rayasi was initially excited to come to Australia under the PALM scheme. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
"When I saw the whole factory, I was scared. The smell, the gas. It's a totally new environment for me."
Eager to embrace the opportunity, she quickly adapted and got to work.
Rayasi was assigned to the 'stomach section' of the factory, which involves cutting a cow's stomach and removing its contents while high-heat steam is blasted to kill bacteria. But within a few weeks, she'd developed occupational hand dermatitis — common among factory workers — and was given sick leave.
When she returned, she asked to be moved to a different section, believing the wet room environment was contributing to her dermatitis, but her request was denied.
I felt uncared for and disrespected. I felt helpless.
Medical issues ignored
Six months later, Rayasi started experiencing chronic pain in her right hand — the hand she uses to hold her knife.
A medical certificate dated February 2023, seen by SBS News, notes a three-month history of worsening pain in Rayasi's hand and recommends that she be placed on modified duties to avoid repetitive or sustained gripping and pulling.
Rayasi claims her employer ignored this advice and refused her requests to be rotated to the lighter-duty packing room, where other PALM workers were assigned.
"I told them I can't keep doing this, my hands hurt. I've got a medical certificate."
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Around that time, Rayasi's labour hire company — the intermediary company that manages her working relationship with the factory — suggested she apply for workers compensation, but she refused, saying it would be a temporary fix.
"I knew when I returned, I'd still be doing the same work that was causing me pain."
Over the next seven months, she repeatedly told her employer she wanted to resign and move to a different PALM-sponsored job if she couldn't be rotated internally.
"He just said if you don't shape up, if you don't perform, you'll get deported," she says of her manager's blunt reply.
She also tried contacting the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, where she was a paying member, but says it didn’t get her anywhere.
SBS News contacted the union but did not receive a reply by deadline.
Rayasi says she repeatedly requested to be rotated to another section of the factory to avoid aggravating the chronic pain in her right hand. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
Finally, feeling she had no other choice, Rayasi walked off the job, immediately invalidating her visa and private medical insurance given she did not have her employer's permission to leave.
"I thought: I can get another job, but I can't get another life; another two hands."
A pattern of exploitation
Rayasi is one of more than 7,000 PALM workers who have absconded from the scheme over the past five years.
Many have cited poor working conditions, exploitation and abuse — there have also been dozens of fatalities.
In NSW, was launched last October, prompted in part by complaints over the scheme.
Reports of exploitation have also led to investigations by the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman (OFWO). By June 2024, the OFWO had started 228 investigations into PALM scheme-approved employers, and recovered $762,625 on behalf of 1,937 workers.
The PALM scheme employs workers in meat processing, agriculture, aged care and tourism. These workers were pictured at the Sydney Fish Market last year. Source: AAP / Joel Carrett
Workers under the scheme, of which there are currently over 30,000, are bound to a single employer and not entitled to initiate a transfer to another employer — otherwise, their visa will be cancelled. (Of the scheme's 494 employers, 102 are labour-hire companies that effectively subcontract workers to other companies.) Transfers are only permitted with the approval of their employer-sponsor or at the discretion of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR).
Contracts under the scheme can be short-term, lasting up to nine months, or long-term, lasting up to four years.
Those fleeing exploitation are forced to either leave the country or stay on illegally, stripped of their rights and with limited pathways to alternative employment. Advocates say this rigidity has created a stream of absconded workers with little understanding of how to navigate leaving an exploitative employer.
Leaving also carries shame.
Workers have told SBS News they fear they'll be blamed for jeopardising the scheme and disgracing their community.
"It's like you're giving the entire Fijian group a bad reputation," Rayasi says.
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Some participating countries employ country liaison officers (CLOs) who are tasked with helping resolve workplace issues locally, but it's unclear how effective they are.
Three absconding workers told SBS News they had contacted the Melbourne-based Fijian country liaison officer, assigned to help PALM workers navigate disputes, but after months, were still unable to get clarity on how to re-engage in the scheme.
SBS News contacted the CLO, who refuted the claims, saying he had helped absconded workers to re-engage in the scheme, including by contacting DEWR on their behalf.
"Every issue has a process, it doesn’t happen overnight. Workers should be patient," he told SBS News.
However, many workers say the pathway to re-engagement is confusing and not straightforward.
"We don't know which channel to go down, because we'll have a meeting, give our information, there's promises, and then you're still left wondering," says one man who doesn't wish to be identified.
Rayasi says she was hesitant to contact DEWR, fearing instant deportation, but eventually contacted it out of desperation, hoping it would help transfer her to a new employer.
I got very lucky, after trying a few times, a woman picked up and said she could help me.
It felt like a weight off her shoulders, initially.
But months dragged on, and deportation letters from the Department of Home Affairs started arriving for other absconders. Eventually, she received an 'intention to cancel' letter, asking her to confirm her employment status.
A spokesperson from the department told SBS News that in 2024, it cancelled 983 offshore visas "due to disengagement from the PALM scheme", noting that these are triggered when an employer reports disengagement.
While the Department of Home Affairs administers visas for the scheme, its lead governing agencies are the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and DEWR, with the latter responsible for re-engaging workers in the scheme.
Earlier this year, the DEWR placed Rayasi with a new employer in Queensland and re-engaged her in the scheme — a year and a half after she left the meat factory.
She knows she's "one of the lucky ones".
Rayasi says she's lucky to have been moved to a new employer under the scheme. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
Deceptive practices
In a modest church in Hallam, a suburb in Melbourne's south-east, Pastor David Jonassen has set up a de facto shelter for absconded PALM workers, aptly named the House of Refuge.
"We've got shower facilities and rooms," Jonassen says.
"One time, we had 16 people staying here with nowhere to go [because] they were kicked out of the agency house."
In the absence of government support, the pastor says faith groups and community centres have stepped in to help exploited workers seeking refuge, both physically and emotionally.
"It's their faith and the love for their family that keeps them going. So they take all the abuse for their family so that they can put bread on the table."
Pastor David Jonassen (left) and his colleague Lemeki Cabebula help run a shelter for absconded PALM workers in Melbourne. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
"Has anyone asked why are they leaving? They're not leaving because they're just looking for a better job. That's not true," he says.
"If [the companies] treated them right and honoured the conditions that [they] contracted them for, they're not going to leave."
Lemeki Cabebula, who works alongside Jonassen, previously worked in labour-hire recruitment and says deceptive practices, such as contract changes on arrival, are commonplace.
Several of the absconded workers now under the care of the House of Refuge allege their contract conditions were not honoured once they arrived in Australia.
"One man was a qualified electrician running his own company in Fiji, and was told he'd be doing the same trade here. His job in the scheme … was catching chickens," Cabebula says.
Lemeki Cabebula says he witnessed deceptive practices firsthand while he was working for a labour hire company. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
One worker who lost a finger while working at a Melbourne abattoir told SBS News she didn't feel properly trained to use the machinery. After a period of reprieve on WorkCover, she was expected to return to meatwork, which she found traumatic.
"I started doing packing instead but I couldn't even look at my hand," she says.
But I had no choice; four years I'm locked in, and I want to be able to help my kids back home.
She has since contacted the PALM scheme to try to change the industry her visa is tied to.
Without the ability to apply for other work legally, many ex-PALM workers turn to cash-in-hand jobs, leaving them vulnerable to new forms of exploitation.
Absconded workers are not entitled to stay in the country or apply for other jobs, which leaves them vulnerable. (Pictured: a Pasifika woman at a community event.) Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
Inequitable rights
Under the scheme, PALM workers are also not eligible for Medicare, and those who abscond forfeit the private health insurance provided as part of their employment contracts.
A 2023 poll conducted by The Australia Institute found that seven in 10 Australians (68 per cent) agree that PALM visa holders should have access to Medicare while working in Australia.
Even those still in the scheme have struggled to navigate Australia's largely digital healthcare system.
Ben Miok, 31, a PALM worker from Papua New Guinea (PNG), recalls his housemate being taken to the local hospital, but being told upfront payment was needed before they would admit him.
He had not set up his digital insurance card and had never been issued a physical one.
Ben Miok is still employed under the PALM scheme and says he has witnessed fellow workers struggle to access medical help. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
"If you are coming from a country like PNG, where you don't have computers and all this, it's very difficult to understand," she says of the lack of digital know-how.
When she later raised the issue with someone from NIB — the insurance company contracted to provide private health cover to PALM workers — they told her they would contact the hospital to address future issues, but she never heard back.
"They have private health insurance, but how much do they really know how to use this?" Koerner says.
In March, the federal government announced it would introduce training for PALM workers in language, literacy, numeracy and digital skills through the Skills for Education and Employment (SEE) program.
Advocates say it's a step forward, but more needs to be done.
The PALM scheme recruits workers for unskilled, low-skilled and semi-skilled positions. (Pictured: PALM workers at a Pasifika community event in Melbourne). Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
A second chance
As part of the Coalition’s election campaign, Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to review the PALM scheme and reintroduce a dedicated agriculture visa, previously cancelled by the Labor government under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Other PALM scheme-targeted reforms introduced by the government since its election in 2022 have included guaranteed minimum work hours and weekly take-home pay for Pacific workers. The Coalition has also indicated it would review and potentially scrap the minimum hours introduced by Labor.
A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said the disengagement rate within the scheme has declined under the Albanese government, dropping from 10 per cent in 2020-21 to 5 per cent in 2023-24.
Shortly after the government was elected in 2022, Foreign Minister Penny Wong (pictured) travelled to Fiji to meet with PALM workers planning to take part in the scheme. Source: Getty / Pita Simpson
It's a concern for those with exploitative employers, and those without.
One man in his 20s, who asked not to be identified, was recently offered a coveted extension with his employer.
He says he would never abscond, but stays up at night thinking about the scheme's lack of choice.
"I can't work in any other industry but meat; if not, we have to go back home," he says.
He had dreamed of becoming a nurse in Fiji, but the pay doesn't compare to what he earns in Australia.
I'm only human. Of course, I wonder if I'll ever do anything else but cut meat.
Recently, the PALM scheme expanded beyond manual labour into industries including aged care; however, switching between sectors for current participants is not straightforward.
PALM workers have told SBS News they want greater flexibility to change jobs under the scheme. Source: SBS News / Mridula Amin
She hopes others like her get a second chance.
"We want to contribute to this country, and better our lives too, but we also want dignity and respect."
