THE Federal Government is being urged to change rules that see foreign farm workers having 35 percent of their superannuation withheld on departure.

The Australian Workers Union the Approved Employers of Australia are calling on Superannuation Minister Stephen Jones to step in and change the system that taxes Pacific Island Labour Mobility scheme workers’ super and makes it administratively difficult to get it paid into a Pacific bank account.

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme is the primary temporary migration program to address unskilled, low-skilled, and semi-skilled workforce shortages in rural and regional Australia. Built on partnerships between Australia and Pacific island nations, the program accepts workers from ten participating countries, including Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

A Federal Government report published in December showed there were 38,164 PALM scheme workers employed in Australia in 2023. Of that number, 9894 (26pc) were employed in the “meat and meat product manufacturing” field. Agriculture, horticulture and fishing was the dominant PALM scheme user, accounting for another 69pc of all labour under the scheme.

The same Government report published a year earlier showed PALM labour in meat processing at 7801 people at the end of 2022 – representing a rise of 27pc in the following 12 months.

The AWU’s Campaign is calling on the government to make four changes to the settings of super for workers employed under the PALM Scheme:

• Simplify Superannuation Paperwork – Streamline the process by allowing PALM workers to complete all superannuation-related paperwork upon arrival in Australia, reducing administrative burdens and delays when accessing their savings.
• Eliminate Departing Australia Superannuation Payment Withdrawal Taxation – Remove the high withdrawal taxes currently imposed on PALM workers’ superannuation, ensuring that they can retain more of their savings for their future.
• Facilitate Portability to Home Retirement Funds – Where possible, create options for PALM workers to transfer their superannuation to independent retirement funds in their home countries, helping them build long-term financial security.
• Establish Preferred Superannuation Funds – Promote Australian Super and Prime Super as preferred funds in the PALM Guidelines to simplify access, prevent for-profit exploitation, and support targeted campaigns to educate workers on their super options.

“The PALM scheme is not just about sourcing labour, it’s meant to engender good relations with Australia’s Pacific neighbours,” AWU national secretary Paul Farrow said.

“It’s pretty tough to see how seizing 35pc of workers’ superannuation is sending the right message,” he said.

“I think it’s a very bad look for Australia, especially considering what has happened in this nation’s history, to be unreasonably seizing the hard-earned wages of Pacific workers. PALM workers tell us it leaves a very sour taste in the mouth, and that’s the very opposite of what the scheme is meant to achieve.

“The current administrative process confounds, delays and often denies PALM workers thousands of dollars in earnings. According to a recent study, a third of all workers in the scheme are just unable to access the super they earned.”