Enhancing the Australia-Tonga bilateral relationship through the 'Pacific seasonal worker pilot scheme'

This paper addresses Australia's 'Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme' (PSWPS)—since replaced by the 'Seasonal Worker Scheme'—a program intended to provide seasonal employment in the horticultural sector for workers from Pacific island countries. One of those countries is Tonga, which was one of the first three Pacific island countries approved as a 'labour sending country' at the beginning of the pilot scheme.

The paper identifies the major failure of the program as its inability to attract the anticipated number of workers, primarily because of competition from backpackers but also because of insufficient marketing and high costs associated with the program. It examines several policy options to address these issues and concludes with a number of recommendations specifically aimed at improving the scheme in order to enhance the bilateral relationship between Australia and Tonga.

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