Poor Housing and Healthcare Fears Among Pacific Islander Workers

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Migrant workers who have lost limbs or been blinded in Australian workplaces fear they will be deported if they seek medical treatment, an inquiry into modern slavery has been told.

Workers under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme were particularly vulnerable due to their strict visa conditions, which stop them from changing employers, lawyer Joshua Strutt said.

“PALM visa holders are one of the most exploited temporary visa holders in Australia,” said Strutt, the chief executive of the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre.

The PALM scheme allows eligible Australian businesses to hire people from Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste, usually to work in agriculture and meat processing.

The legal service has heard from PALM workers who have been severely injured in workplace accidents, but are too scared to seek medical care.

“There’s this really huge power imbalance that exists through this system that needs to be fixed,” Strutt told the inquiry in Sydney on Monday.

The NSW parliamentary inquiry is examining the risks of modern slavery in rural areas, investigating the extent of forced labour, violence, sexual servitude, labour trafficking and wage violations.

Woolworths attests to ‘appalling’ conditions

Supermarket giant Woolworths took on a labour hire company after being told migrant workers in its Queensland supply chain were living in poor conditions.

“We did a site inspection and the housing conditions were indeed appalling and unliveable,” Woolworths group’s human rights general manager Rachel Elliott said.

“The workers had raised this with the labour hire provider to no avail.”

The unnamed labour hire organisation was booted from migrant worker schemes, but there have since been reports of the company attempting to operate in other states, she said.

'It broke us, the whole feeling of shame, anger, despair': Modern slavery survivor image

Woolworths conducts 1,000 workplace audits in its supply chain each year, revealing about 5,000 incidents of non-compliance that range from fire safety issues to underpayment.

The underpayments were often the result of labour hire companies failing to pass on entitlements to workers, Elliott said.

After audits in NSW over the last two years, Woolworths has worked with suppliers to repay $50,000 in the meat industry and $48,000 in horticulture.

‘A visceral fear of speaking up’

Overcrowded accommodation was another pressing issue, with regular reports of 10 people living in one house and paying $170 per bed, Australian Workers’ Union organiser Jonathan Cook told the inquiry.

“It is a clear and obvious exploitation of farm workers,” Cook said.

Several agricultural industry bodies cited an independent survey conducted by the Australian National University and the World Bank that found 98 per cent of PALM workers would recommend the scheme to others.

But workers were not in a position of power to be open about their conditions, Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association industrial officer Bernard Govind said.

“We know migrant workers … have a visceral fear of speaking up against workplace exploitation for fear of visa cancellation and deportation.”