Part of the speech from Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations, Hon. Mark Maipakai.

Your Excellencies,

Mr. Ian Kamish, High Commissioner of Australia to PNG;

Ms. Marion Crawshaw, High Commissioner of New Zealand to PNG;

·        Esteemed Secretaries of Departments and Representatives;

·        The Chairman and Members of the PNG Seasonal Worker Taskforce;

·        Officers of the PNG Seasonal Worker Coordination Office;

·        All PNG Returned Seasonal Workers and the last 18 Returning PNG Seasonal Workers from Queensland, Australia and Hawkes Bay, New Zealand present here;

·        Invited Guests;

·        Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure and honor to address this historically significant occasion, marking the closure of the 2011/12 Harvest Season in Australia and New Zealand and also PNG’s very first formal season of participation in regional seasonal labor migration schemes; Australia’s Pacific Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and the New Zealand Recognized Seasonal Employers (RSE) programs.

The ceremony also coincides with the return of PNG’s last two batches of seasonal workers from Australia and New Zealand. Standing proudly in front of us this evening we have 18 young men and women from all over PNG. 6 women and 6 men, members of PNG Batch 10 who just returned from a 6 months contract working with citrus farmer Iron Bark Citrus in Mundubbera, Queensland, Australia; and our very first 6 pioneer men who just returned from an extended 8 months contract with Pick Hawkes Bay in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the other 70 young men and women who have already returned back to PNG in the past few months, comprising 9 batches that PNG sent to work on various Australian farms in Mundubbera and Yandina in Queensland; Coffs Harbor and Glenorie in New South Wales; Penguin in Tasmania; Robinvale, Mildura South, and Yelta in Victoria.

On behalf of the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Immigration, Hon. Rimbink Pato, MP, with whom I have the pleasure of jointly providing Ministerial oversight on the PNG’s participation in the seasonal workers programs, the Government and the people of PNG, I sincerely congratulate each and every one of all the 88 PNG Seasonal Workers that took part in the 2011/12 Harvest Season (82 in Australia and 6 pioneers in New Zealand) for a successful first season.

You have been great Ambassadors of PNG in rural Australia and New Zealand, and have proudly flown the PNG flag, not only in the workplace, but also in those communities that have received you with open hearts and minds. Well done and welcome back home.

Through both the Australian and New Zealand High Commissioners, I wish to extend the PNG Government’s profound appreciation and gratitude to the Governments, employers and farmers, communities and peoples of Australia and New Zealand for allowing our young citizens to participate in SWP and RSE programs, also for hosting them in your various communities, providing them with life-changing opportunities and above all the friendships and understandings established that will forge greater people to people contact and intra-regional cooperation in the years to come.

I also take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the PNG Australian, and New Zealand Governments and private sector companies, in particular farmers and employers in Australia – MADEC and Iron Bark Citrus, and New Zealand – Pick Hawkes Bay, for making all this possible for the ordinary rural citizens of PNG.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

 At the outset let me remind you that the Seasonal Worker Program is the first of its kind in our country’s history, as PNG has largely been a labor-receiving country since Independence, hence, labor-sending arrangements present new policy challenges and opportunities to the Government.

 Hence, I am equally reminded that there is indeed a critical need for the Government to intervene and establish a dependable labor migration and employment arrangements for its unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled citizens to meet labor demands within PNG and abroad under its Decent Work Agenda.

 A whole of Government-policy approach taken in this program is in line, fully complements and in conformity with PNG’s national development plans, goals and priorities, whilst pursuing and the UNs Millennium Development Goals and ILO Conventions, have been adequately reflected or encompassed in the both the PNG Vision 2050 and the Medium Term Development Strategy.

PNG Vision 2050 also calls for the Government to invest in human capital, wealth generating and employment – specifically, it calls for 3 million employment opportunities to be created by 2020.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

For PNG, the Program Starts and Ends in rural villages, where 75% of population lives and therefore it is rural-based and Pro-Poor focus program. Rural PNG Helping Rural Australia & New Zealand and vise versa. Whilst the program is promising as it would provide significant social and economic benefits directly to poor rural unemployed young men and women, and their immediate families and communities, the Government seeks to develop its national labor and employment policy based on an inclusive growth through decent and productive work in tackling the poverty and related social and health challenges effectively.

We are now in the development phase of our labor-sending arrangements, through participation in Australia’s SWP and New Zealand’s RSE. So far, I am heartened and encouraged by the positive feedback from both countries on our systems and processes on sending arrangements, often described as one of the best in the Pacific islands region.

It is still early days for Papua New Guinea make a comprehensive and well-founded analysis and development policy perspective on Labor Migration, including its aggregate benefits and relative disadvantages. At the out-set, it presents a more effective and direct alternative to overseas development assistance to labor-sending economies.

Experiences of other countries particularly in the northern hemisphere are being closely studied with the view to harness the immense opportunities that arise out of such schemes elsewhere and how these could be tailored into a ‘home-grown’ product, meeting PNG’s peculiar social and economic conditions and structures.

Experiences from small neighboring Pacific Island countries have been rosy and encouraging. Whilst economic benefits have been recited as resounding and very beneficial all over the region.

PNG’s approach has been slow, holistic (a whole of government) and calculative to ensure we do not rush into something new that could present new unmanageable challenges for the country’s unemployed, underemployed and or untrained bulk of the country’s population. Managing our international image is also very crucial for the success of the program in PNG.

A comprehensive national legislation on Labor Migration is yet to be enacted by PNG, and this is being pursued at the moment by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, in close collaboration with international partners.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to convey here that the PNG Government is indeed grateful and encouraged by developments in both the SWP and RSE, and will do its utmost, in close cooperation with the Australia and New Zealand to ensure our citizens continue to participate in both programs, with a view to increasing its worker numbers.

I also take this opportunity to congratulate both Australia and New Zealand on the successes of their respective programs, whilst noting the similarities in policy focuses by both Governments towards social and economic developments in the Pacific and on benefiting employers/farmers at home.

 Similarly, I congratulate the New Zealand Government on the successes of its RSE program, since its launch in 2007. I note with satisfaction the large numbers of Pacific island workers that have participated in the scheme from the start. In the 2007/2008 season, New Zealand took in 4,451 seasonal workers from the region (excluding PNG), this increased to around 8,000 in the 2011/12 season, including from PNG for the first time. The RSE has been viewed the world over as a success and heralded as international best practice, a model for other countries to follow.

 I also congratulate Australia on its decision to continue with a full SWP following the end of its pilot scheme in June this year and am equally pleased to note the expansion of the program to also trial out 4 other sectors in accommodation, aquaculture, cotton and sugar cane. From humble beginnings of 56 Pacific seasonal workers in 2009, Australia received 1,614 by the end of the pilot period in the 2011/12 season, including the 82 from PNG only in our first season of participation.