Reimagining Palm In A Better Way

Review he Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme (PALM) to a design solely fit for un­employed Fijians. It's that simple and makes more sense.

Like Apolosi Buekilagi, a high school graduate, now in his early 30s, is a celebrated successful Fijian for his hard-earned efforts under PALM.

He joined the butcher sector under PALM, saved up, and is now the proud owner of a house, a farm, a car

a sustainable combination that will keep his family going quite comfortably for a while longer.His dreams may have come true, but he's not stop­ping there.

Buekilagi is heading back to the 'Land Down Under' for more through PALM.

It's the kind of story we need more of when it comes to PALM.

Less of the soppy stories that emanate from employ­ers who continue to bemoan the loss of skilled work­ers to PALM.

The dire impact of this scheme makes bleak the efforts of local business leaders who have, over the years, laboured with love, and sometimes without when the conditions were strenuous, to build what they have.

Take the manufacturing sector as an example, which again is doomed.

Slapped with skills drain, the imposition of the three per cent import duty on raw material is a sledgehammer shot that relegated the industry to just being a by-line of Fiji's history.

Along with other impositions - plans to increase the national minimum wage to $5 per hour, removal of the 300 per cent tax deduction first time employ­ees, and planned energy cost increases - parts of the manufacturing industry will slowly disappear over the next three to four years.

Essentially an export industry, its operating costs in Fiji continue to rise rapidly- much more than our competitors - to price it out of the market.

The National Employment Centre does not care about Fijian employers, with the system of export­ing skilled workers to the detriment of Fiji, and the benefit of developed countries like Australia and New Zealand.

In their wake, skilled workers leave behind a vac­uum of a national workforce that could be falling apart for the incompetent and unreliable workforce.

The involvement of the Australian Immigration Department in facilitating a visa scam with student visas is also draining the skilled workforce.

Skilled Fijians going to Australia on student visas and working as cleaners in hotels, while living in ap­palling housing conditions under the guise of study­ing is a wake-up call.

We all know it's a scam, so do they.

Story By: FREDERICA ELBOURNE

Feedback: frederica.elbourne@fijisun.com.fj