Country liaison officers in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme are not as effective as they could be because they are too few and face conflicting expectations, Development Policy Centre research associate Richard Curtain wrote on the Devpolicy Blog.
Curtain is a recent former research fellow with the centre and works on Pacific labour markets and migration. The article draws on a policy brief he wrote with Randall Pryor on the support available to PALM workers.
Most PALM workers do not see country liaison officers, or CLOs, as useful intermediaries, he wrote. The 2021–23 Pacific Labour Mobility Survey asked workers from Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu to whom they would go for advice or help, and to whom they would report a complaint.
Among short-term workers, just over one in ten said they would seek advice or help from a CLO, and 3 per cent said they would take a complaint to one. Far more nominated their team leader (49 per cent) or their employer (33 per cent). Among longer-term workers, fewer than one in 20 would report a complaint to a CLO.
Employers were also lukewarm. A 2025 survey by Approved Employers of Australia covered 35 approved employers with 12,235 workers, mostly in horticulture, Curtain wrote. One in five agreed that CLOs help resolve issues involving PALM workers, and one in five that CLOs give meaningful support to employers and workers. For both statements, two in five responded negatively and two in five were neutral.
There are now 15 CLOs and two labour attachés, a ratio of one officer to 1,872 workers, he wrote. Their scarcity and where they live mean they are often far from the workers they serve.
Adding more officers will not help unless their role is clear, Curtain wrote. He identified three sets of expectations: those of the sending-country government that employs the CLO, those of the approved employer, and those of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The PALM scheme Approved Employer Guidelines say nothing about the CLO role, he wrote. Worker welfare is the responsibility of approved employers and the welfare and wellbeing staff they employ, with CLOs treated as liaison officers only.
A draft DFAT terms of reference, circulated to labour-sending units, heads of mission in Canberra and CLOs but not published, runs to five pages and asks for regular workplace visits and monitoring of welfare conditions. Those tasks go well beyond what the present number of CLOs can do, Curtain wrote, and appear to cut across the obligations of approved employers.
He proposed annual end-of-year gatherings between CLOs and others involved in the scheme, of the kind held in Victoria over the past three years, to work out functions and tasks they have the capacity to carry out and report on.