Minister for Treasury Ian Ling Stuckey, MP, officially endorsed Western Highlands Province to participate in the Pacific Labour Mobility Program (PALM) on 17th of March 2025 following Governor Wai Rapa’s expression of Interest to join.
The Treasury ‘s approval and endorsement means that WHP is now in the register for eligible provinces to send their local people who have interest to work under PALM can now apply. The governor of WHP honorable Wai Rapa was advised to register this as a province so now all WHP can apply instead of local MPs seeking approval individually. The PALM is a government to government arrangement so can only be facilitated through the local members or regional MPs.
Governor Wai has a heart to find opportunities for youths and unemployed people in the province so when he saw the opportunity presented to him he was keen to register with Treasury. Work on this started two years ago when he began reaching out to potential partners and coordinators via phone.
He was willing to send 10,000 people. Now with this approval he can send as many people as he can as long as this arrangement is in place. We thank the governor in pursuing this until it got approved, now that WHP is in the register and the PALM coordinator appointed Treasury will only deal with the appointed Coordinator which is Abraham Moxen as a provincial PALM coordinator for WHP.
The target for this programme is for all WHP people who are interested to go live in Australia or New Zealand and work on short or long term basis. They must be aged 21 to 40, can speak and understand English, have their NID, passports and police clearance. Once they have all these can visit Mara Haus and register their interest.
Why are they targets, Australia government need work force and PNG has loads of unemployed youths so they are trying to do a match on a government to government level, this is current Australian labor government scheme that was established when Anthony Albanese got elected in May 2022. If the government change this scheme could change as well so its better to make use of this PALM program while labour is still in government. The next elections are happening in May this year and things could change.
When do we plan to send people? As soon as we can, we want to start getting people to come and register themselves next week , if all documents are in place it should take about 2 to 4 weeks.
The governor is very happy and acknowedge God and thanked the Minister for the fast approval, he is really looking forward to kick start this programme and get as many people out of the province as he can.
Interested people should not pay any bribe or pay any fees to get in, they only need to get their NID,passport and police clearance, if people have any questions can come to the Mara Haus to get instructions, for those who already have this documents can register their interest immediately. This new WHP PALM section comes directly under governor Wai’s supervision and will be managed by Abraham Moxen, who is the provincial PALM coordinator.