Towards an integrated labour migration strategy in our Pacific neighbourhood

In this public lecture delivered on 2 June 2016, Professor Richard Bedford takes a long-term perspective, looking both backwards and forwards, at Pacific migration and the approach of Australia and New Zealand to it.

Between 2007 and 2010 the late Graeme Hugo and Dr Richard Bedford met several times with the Australia New Zealand Immigration Forum, an annual meeting of senior officials from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Department of Labour (NZ), to discuss population movement in the Pacific. An outcome of this interaction was a report entitled Population movement in the Pacific: a perspective on future prospects in which it was argued that greater convergence of policy relating to labour migration of Pacific peoples could make a significant contribution to development in the region. Four years later, after protracted negotiations over the Parliament and Civic Education Rebate plus trade and associated mobility agreements, a more coherent ANZ approach to Pacific labour migration is emerging. Are there prospects for further coherence in immigration policy that might contribute to alleviating pressures in the Pacific neighbourhood for greater access to opportunities for work and residence overseas over the next 30 years? The presentation addressed this question with particular reference to the atoll territories of the central Pacific.

Dr Richard Bedford QSO, FRSNZ is Emeritus Professor at the University of Waikato and President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is a specialist in migration research and since the mid-1960s he has been researching processes of population movement in the Asia-Pacific region. He is currently working on implications for New Zealand and Australia of population developments and migration trends in the Pacific over the next 30-40 years, including the impact of climate change on migration.

Professor Brian Opeskin, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University was the discussant for the lecture.

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