Papua New Guinea joins the Pacific Labour Scheme

I am pleased to announce that Papua New Guinea has today joined Australia's Pacific Labour Scheme.

Papua New Guinea's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Hon Rimbink Pato MP and I signed the Memorandum of Understanding for Papua New Guinea's participation in the Scheme during our bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the High Level Dialogue on Indo-Pacific Cooperation in Indonesia.

The Scheme provides Australian employers in rural and regional Australia with access to a reliable, long term workforce to help their businesses grow.

Papua New Guinea will now join Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu in the Pacific Labour Scheme. Workers can undertake non-seasonal work in rural and regional Australia for up to three years.

Over 400 Papua New Guinea workers have participated in the Seasonal Worker Programme, gaining skills and supporting their families in Papua New Guinea while helping fill labour shortages in rural and regional Australia. With Papua New Guinea's entry into the Pacific Labour Scheme, it will now have the opportunity to build on this, and to provide more Papua New Guinean workers with access to skills development.

Visit http://dfat.gov.au/labourmobility to learn more about Australia's labour mobility initiatives, including the Pacific Labour Scheme.