Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024N00334:body:0:p2
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024N00334
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 2771–5685

Enhancing Pacific Engagement Budget 2023-24 measure provides access to Medicare for 200 families participating in a Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme family accompaniment pilot, to begin in the 2023-24 financial year.

The PALM scheme allows eligible Australian businesses to hire workers from select Pacific countries and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available. Eligible businesses can recruit workers for short-term jobs for up to nine months or long-term roles for between one and four years in unskilled, low-skilled and semi-skilled positions.

The PALM scheme delivers jobs for Pacific and Timor-Leste workers, enabling them to develop skills, earn income and support their families back home. Pacific labour mobility also helps create strong links between people, businesses, and communities, fostering deeper connections between Australia and its neighbours. Pacific and Timor-Leste workers help to fill labour gaps in regional and rural Australia, and the agriculture industry nationally. This offers Australian employers access to reliable, productive workers who also contribute to the cultural and economic vibrancy of communities across Australia.

All PALM scheme workers, including both short and long-term, are granted a Temporary Work (International Relations) visa (Subclass 403) within the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility stream. There are other streams within the 403 visa subclass for persons not participating in the PALM scheme. There are also long-term PALM scheme participants on the now repealed Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) stream of the 403 visa subclass.

The Australian Government has committed to expanding and improving the PALM scheme, including through a policy of family accompaniment for workers on long-term placements. This will reduce the social impacts of extended periods of family separation. The roll-out of family accompaniment will commence initially with a pilot of 200 workers and their families.

PALM scheme workers will need to meet additional program criteria to be eligible to bring their families to Australia, such as the worker having already spent a period of time in Australia prior to their family arriving. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will approve the workers who will participate in the family accompaniment pilot.

A member of the family unit within the meaning of the Migration Act 1958 includes: a PALM scheme worker's spouse or de facto partner; a child or step-child who is aged up to 18, or who is aged 18 to 23 and is dependent on the PALM scheme worker or their spouse or de facto partner, or who has turned 23 and is dependent on the PALM scheme worker or their spouse or de facto partner due to being incapacitated; and any dependent child of a child or step-child as described here.

Extending access to Medicare for this cohort will support the objective of ensuring families of PALM