MoU PLS: Steak-holders speak

Memorandum of Understanding

How does the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) challenge the conception of what aid is, who works on it, and who benefits from it?

In the first part of the PLS mini-series, we profiled the hard yakka that is the daily grind inside Warrnambool’s meatworks. This episode we leave the factory gates and head out into the community to learn why the PLS is so much more than simple stratagem to fill gaps in Australia’s assembly lines. We cheer from the sidelines during a Timor-Leste versus Vietnam soccer match, dial home to see how the money earned at Midfields is being distributed and spent, celebrate Pedro Lay’s 40th birthday, share fish and chips with a remarkable Fijian woman called Ana, listen to a Timorese choir ring through the pews at local mass, and speak to our very own PLS fixer, Dr Michael Rose from The Development Policy Centre, about opportunities to expand the scheme.

Recommended reading: Feast your eyes on more meaty PLS content at DevPolicy, and read up on the Timorese experience in Warrnambool with a blog piece by Dr Michael Rose and another by East Timorese PLS worker Cornelio Dos Santos.

Something to workshop: Next week, The Development Policy Centre is hosting a one-day workshop on Pacific migration. To join in the discussion on regional labour markets, economic mobility, and social impacts of the various schemes, sign up here.

Behind the curtain: We are on air thanks to the ANU’s Development Policy Centre.

• Host, Gordon Peake: Twitter | Writing
• Producer, Julia Bergin: Twitter | Writing
• Sound Design: Luther Canute

Visual credits: Julito Couto Miranda interviews Dr Michael Rose on the sidelines of a Timor Leste versus Vietnam soccer match. Photo courtesy of MOU.