Minister: Take Advantage Of Opportunity If Given
Every individual should take advantage of going to work in Australia under the Pacific-Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (PALM) if given an opportunity.
Minister for Employment, Parveen Bala made this comment after some Opposition political parties claimed that the villages were getting nothing because of the scheme.
He said these politicians were not worried about the peoples’ futures, but were bent on spreading fake news to win the upcoming election.
“I was in Naitasiri today; they had a question as to when they will be given the opportunity to go and work in Australia under PALM Scheme. I had advised them that they needed to apply first,” he said.
Phone number change issues
He has urged applicants not to change their phone numbers after applying for a spot in the PALM.
But if they had, he advised that the applicants must inform the National Employment Centre (NEC) or the ministry.
“A challenge the staff face is trying to get hold of applicants after they have been selected by the employer. Please if you change your number, advise the ministry,” he said.
“People filling in their form give the mobile numbers they are using and after not hearing from us for more than a month, they change their sim.
“We have nothing against the change in sim, but applicants need to advise the ministry if they have changed in number.
“Let me stress that your patience is required.”
NEC
Mr Bala said the NEC was the only one sending labour unit.
His comments come after there were questions raised regarding the fake recruiting labour units on social media.
He said staff of the NEC would work for long hours at times trying to meet the demand of workers.
“This programme is an employment driven one. We will wait for the employer’s demand and request,” he said.
“The staff at the NEC will straight away identify workers after receiving the request from employers,” he said.
There has been some misunderstanding that the ministry had a say as to who goes and who does not.
Mr Bala said it is the employer who chooses the successful applicants and the number of workers they need.
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