Evidence over nine months to the end of February 2024 shows a declining demand for Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme seasonal workers — those who used to be under the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP), now absorbed into the PALM scheme as short-term PALM workers. Figure 1 shows the monthly numbers of short-term PALM workers in agriculture and of all PALM workers in agriculture, between 30 June 2023 and 29 February 2024. (Now, under PALM, workers can be hired in agriculture on a multi-year, non-seasonal basis.) Figure 1: Number of short-term PALM (SWP) workers and all PALM workers i ..read more

The second time I met Sergeant Alice Arigo of the Tari Family and Sexual Violence Unit (FSVU), who is known in the community as Alice, she was taking down the statement of a woman who had been brutally beaten, holding her pen in one hand while cradling the woman’s infant baby in the other. It was late March 2024, a few days before Good Friday. The woman making the statement sat on the floor, preferring that to the couch behind her that stored a broken and flattened chair underneath. “They come in with a heavy load,” Alice had told me a few days earlier, referring to the broken chair. “Everythi ..read more

Gender Based Violence (GBV), especially intimate partner violence, is a grave concern in Papua New Guinea, where the rate of violence against women is around 80%. One in two women in the country are victims of intimate partner violence. One long-term measure to address intimate partner violence involves educating children and young people about the short- and long-term impacts on individuals, families, communities, and PNG more broadly. As young people’s awareness grows, along with their understanding of related laws and available support services, they will become empowered to seek assistance ..read more

The international community has played a significant role in Afghanistan since 2001, which can be delineated into three distinct phases. The period from 2001 to 2018 is characterised as an era of intervention, reconstruction, and state-building. The period from 2017 to 2021 saw efforts to minimise engagement and seek a political settlement between the Taliban insurgents and the then-Afghan government. Since 2021, there has been disengagement and efforts at re-engagement. Following the ousting of the Taliban regime in late 2001, according to the World Bank, Afghanistan received about US$90 bill ..read more

Who will emerge as prime minister from Wednesday’s elections in Solomon Islands? The prime minister doesn’t shape policy in Solomons as much as some commentators suggest. Prime ministers there are largely prisoners of political economy. Still, as I wrote on 4 April, exactly who emerges on top after the election still has some importance. The prime minister will set the tone of relationships with China and Australia. Some would do a somewhat better task of governing the country than others too. And the incumbent, Manasseh Sogavare, has a popularity problem in poorer parts of Honiara. His select ..read more

I came to this evening of short films not sure what to expect. I have a history with West Papua (here referring to the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, which comprises five provinces, one named “West Papua”) from my days fronting the legendary West Papuan band the “Black Brothers” in the early 1990s. During that time, I was exposed to stories of struggle and pride in the identity of the people of West Papua. From their declaration of self-determination and self-government and the raising of the Morning Star flag on 1 December 1961, to the so-called “Act of Free Choice” referendum i ..read more

Last night the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its preliminary data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending by the 31 country members of its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the 2023 calendar year. Once again, total aid from these donors has increased (by 1.8% in real terms, to US$224 billion) year-on-year. And, once again, Australia languishes near the bottom of the rankings when it comes to aid generosity (just in front of Portugal, at 26 out of 31 bilateral donors), despite a real increase in aid spending of 7.8% relative to 2022 “due ..read more

Results of the 14 February elections in Indonesia suggest that voters chose to be led by the current Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto and his Vice President, the sitting President’s son. Two presidential contenders, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, have challenged the results, with their cases to “save the future of Indonesia’s democracy” presently ongoing in the Constitutional Court. While the pending court case is important, many anticipate that the outcome is unlikely to change. Indonesia’s next chapter is about to begin, and it is time for international agencies to reflect on how the ..read more

During New Zealand’s 2023 election campaign, a pre-election promise made by the National-led coalition, now in government, was to increase the cap on numbers employed under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme to 38,000 by the end of the decade (up from 19,000 in 2022-23) and, possibly, to open RSE recruitment up to other countries. The suggestion to expand the RSE scheme — which has had a clear Pacific preference from the outset — to countries beyond the region might seem unexpected. However, the scheme has, in fact, always allowed for the recruitment of a relatively small number of ..read more

Global demand and prices for cocoa have soared in the past few years with the price now the highest it has been in over 44 years – USD6,514 per metric ton as of 27 February 2024. In Papua New Guinea, cocoa ranks third among agricultural export crops, following palm oil and coffee, contributing around 14% of national agricultural export revenue. Smallholder farmers are responsible for more than 80% of cocoa production, with cocoa farming serving as the primary income source for approximately two million people. Since 2008, there have been warranted concerns for PNG’s cocoa industry, particularl ..read more