Anticipating Future Labour Mobility Motivations in Australia Through Latin American Experiences

• In Event: Settler States, Temporary Labour: A Multi-sited Analysis of Social Reproduction, Transnationality, and Migration Management

Abstract

Labour mobility has been central to Australia’s regional workforce, with two key temporary visa programs feeding into Australia’s migrant workforce: the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) and the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visa. Agriculture, in particular, is highly dependent on these two visas to provide a stable – and growing – cohort of workers. Likewise, the regional and rural communities that host these workers have become reliant on them economically and culturally. Both visas are pitched as temporary migration opportunities, with a focus on remittance and development (for PALM), and an emphasis on cultural exchange and employment opportunities (for WHMs). The distinction between these two visa subclasses is increasingly blurred, with pressing social and political consequences. At the same time, several Latin American nationalities are being added to the WHM program and are at the forefront of this new tension in migration policy. In this paper we draw on preliminary empirical observations of interviews with WHM and PALM visa holders, from Latin America and elsewhere in the Pacific, which show overlapping migration motivations: on savings and remittance, and on individuals seeking out employer sponsorship for prior skills. We sketch out some of the anticipated futures of labour mobility in regional Australia: a growing precariat of temporary and cyclic mobility for participants on these visas, and the broader social and cultural impacts on regional hosting communities.

(Robert Mason is also an author on this paper. I cannot add him via the portal.)

Author

• Kaya Barry, Griffith University