Temporary workers working in regional NSW, hired on visas through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme have been forced to have abortions to meet visa requirements.
From 500 or 600 women a year approaching local doctors in the Murranbidgee reason, 95% choose to have an abortion to keep the job thattheir visa requires.
“Basically, the story
is the same every single time,” Trudi Beck, a Wagga Wagga based GP told the NSW inquiry into the risk of slavery for temporary migrant workers, at a hearing at The Gem Hotel,Griffith. “They are a Pacific island worker. They are here to support their family. They often already have children at home who are being looked after by other relatives. They are here to earn money to send back to their families. They find themselves pregnant. They know that they will breach their visa requirements to be able to work – either because they’re in a physical job in the kinds of positions that they are often working in and then they will either not be able to continue doing that job because it’s heavy lifting or, if they keep the baby, they will have to go home because they won’t be able to work as per the conditions of their visa…
“I would say the majority of the time, even with what we call non-directive pregnancy counselling … I would say 95 per cent of the time they would pick a termination, and not because of personal choice, necessarily.
“Then we have formed relationships with local allied services, like pharmacies, so that we can give them the card of how to get to the pharmacy, because they’re usually from out of town.
We pre-alert the pharmacist that someone will be coming, because the pharmacist has requirements around of restricted medications. We financially consent them, because those medications are not covered by PBS, obviously, and they’re around the $500 mark.
“We try to do basic screening like you would for any Australian Medicare-eligible woman, which is the basics of chlamydia and gonorrhoea screening, because it’s extensively prevalent in these communities—chlamydia and gonorrhoea screening, obviously, is not covered by the MBS, so they have to pay for it—also cervical screening, in alignment with Australian guidelines, which they usually haven’t had done, and then talk to them about contraception.” Beck then deatils the high cost of contrception for these women who don’t have Medicare.
Speaking of the plight of these women Beck added “This is something that I have held deeply difficult personal feelings around, because it’s such an ethics and values clash for me, and I gave a Hippocratic oath when I started medicine. It doesn’t feel good, and no-one will listen. Sorry.”
A Greens member of the Legislative Council and a member of the committee investigating modern day slavery, Ms jenny Leong responded: “No, thank you, Dr Beck. Don’t be at all sorry. The evidence we’re hearing today is grim, and I think all of us are feeling the same level of horror about what is occurring under the current watch and where things are at, so thank you for saying it. It’s really powerful for you to be able to put this on the record, because it means that we can also share the burden of what we do about it.”
Beck: “Yes, and there’s nothing that an individual can do. I have approached local employers
and I’ve said to them, ‘We’re seeing this. Would you be motivated to work with us?’ They say, ‘No, we’re within our requirements for our visa provision. We’re not interested.’ We’re like, ‘We will provide services for your women, specifically,’ and there’s been no goodwill around them co-operating with us in any way. I’ve spoken to the hospital about it. They will say they have the same problems as us, and they’re like, ‘We provide the service and issue a bill.’ I’ve obviously escalated it to my local State member. I’ve escalated it to my primary health network. But because it’s such an unseen population, because they’re so scared—I’ve asked them to go to the media. They’re reluctant to do that because they don’t want to go on record. It’s an unseen population.”
A local pastor ‘I thank the Lord that he has brought me to Wagga’
Local Pentecostal pastor Seremaia “Jerry” Rokosuka provides practical help tp the PALM workers. Committee chair, Joe McGirr, Independent MP for Wagga and a former associate dean of the University of Notre Dame Australia welcomed Pastor Jerry and asked him about his local experiences.
Rokosuka: “I thank the Lord that he has brought me to Wagga for the last five years. It was very, very
bad, which I can see today. For me, looking after these people of mine, some of them save $80 a week. For me,having a family, a wife and four children, all that time, myself, alone, is working.
“My background, I work as an engineer. The majority of my pay I use to look after the Solomon, the Papua New Guinean, the Fijian, the Tongan and the Vanuatuan. The church that I’m running in Wagga Wagga, as Mr Joe knows well, is an interdenominational church,
regardless.
“The reason I started this ministry is for people to feel like home, first, and, second, not to put the name
of Australia down, because everybody who is calling back home, I want them to know that Australia is their real home. But regardless of the situation that they are facing under the agreement that they signed back home, there’s something that is always done by the scheme that brings the labour from Tonga, the Solomons and Fiji, and the Pacific islands … These are the countries that I’m looking after until today. It’s very sad to share this morning; it is very sad. Some of them I already raised $90 to have within them. It is not enough. Some of their families back home, they have a house to pay, children, medical, school fees. That is all that I was doing, myself and my family—looking after these families. This is the fifth year, until today…”
Leong asks Pastor Jerry about tragic circumstances.
Rokosuka:”I have people that said that they can come and testify. I have them. They
can come in because everybody comes home to me. Mr Joe and them, they know. I have been dealing with one yesterday. He gave me a call that he is sick. They know that he is sick but they have to drive from the work, get him from where he is and take him back to work…”
Leong interjected: “But no-one should be working if they’re sick, right?”
Rokosuka: “That’s it. ‘If Australia allows you to be part of this scheme, then you have to work. You have a wife and children. You have to pay the bills. That’s why you are here in Australia.’ That is what I have been doing for the last five years. So I’ve come up with the point because everybody everywhere – last Saturday there was a group from Melbourne that they came across at home with this situation. Last Friday, we had a very good conversation with them. I thank Mr Joe, member of the Parliament Mr Michael McCormack, and the mayor for connecting me to the local business that enables to support me in order to meet their needs.”
Full transcript here.