After receiving her paycheck, she was taken aback by how little remained after deductions. The amount wasn’t just insufficient for her own needs, but also fell short of her ability to support her family back in the Solomon Islands—her primary motivation for joining the work scheme.

This financial strain has left her, along with many others, susceptible to both exploitation and injury.

In August, while employed at a farm in the rural town of Leeton, New South Wales, she experienced a serious accident. She fell from a tractor, leaving her with a significant leg injury.

Ethel bears physical reminders of her ordeal, with scars marking her leg from the injury she sustained while working unlawfully on the farm in regional New South Wales.

He has dozens of notebooks filled with information about the people he’s helped — detailing accounts of underpayment, mistreatment and exploitation. He points to the case of one woman whose employment picking strawberries was terminated because she became pregnant.

“I believe if they understand what I know, they would accept and understand that these people are not really causing us any problem but they’re caught in a trap and we need to help,” he says.

A report by the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre noted employers are allowed to make deductions from the wages of PALM workers, which means they are sometimes left with just $100-$200 per week.

Fellow Solomon Islands-born PALM worker Constantino Waowao also feels his options are limited. He says mistreatment by his employer in regional NSW caused him to leave the scheme in 2022.

“I don’t feel happy about this because I need protection now,” he says.

Illegal work necessary, but risky

“I think everyone can acknowledge it is a problem and we need to address it, it’s not sustainable,”” he says.

Far from an issue only affecting the regions or the towns dependent on this shadow workforce, Dachi points out that the fruit picked by disengaged workers ends up in homes across the country.

Modern slavery risks

The state’s anti-slavery commissioner James Cockayne says disengaged workers are at significant risk of exploitation such as debt bondage, forced labour, deceptive recruitment, sexual harassment and violence and sexual servitude.

He blames labour hire companies for “overcharging people for certain services like laundry, transport, access to refrigeration”, which he says pushes people into “a hamster wheel of debt”.

“Companies are moving here because the lack of licensing means that it’s easier to make more profit, which, of course, is a synonym for exploit more people more easily,” he says.

The Australia Institute has found more than 230 Pacific Island workers were seriously injured and 45 died in Australia between 2020 and 2023.

“Many of the stakeholders don’t vote in Australia, the temporary migrant workers don’t vote, their governments don’t vote,” he says.

A history of migrant worker exploitation

“It felt like a good option to come out and help mum out as well and also to develop my young siblings’ journey,” he says.

“That’s when the penny dropped, that two years of our hard work, our families have never seen any money, nor did we,” he says.

He’s now a citizen, working as an advocate for others experiencing modern slavery.

Maytom agrees more coordinated support is needed. He wants to see safety nets formalised for disengaged workers, such as interim health cover and an amnesty offered to allow the ghost workforce to be re-engaged into the scheme.

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