New Zealand has adopted such a scheme and the ALP is prepared to explore the idea, but the Prime Minister, John Howard, has ruled it out.



In Sydney yesterday, Mr Zoellick told the Herald in an interview: "Labour mobility is absolutely critical to the long-term development of the South Pacific.

"I don't know about Australia's visa and immigration rules but labour mobility will be important for remittances and skills" for South Pacific countries.

The World Bank, whose charter is the eradication of poverty, lends about $US24 billion ($28 billion) in concessional finance to poor countries each year.

Mr Zoellick, formerly the US trade representative and also a former deputy secretary of state in the Bush Administration, is in Australia for a meeting today of the finance ministers of Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum countries.

He said that he also wanted to explore with Australia the options for working co-operatively in helping the development of the South Pacific states.

The subject of failing and fragile states was a key area of concern for the bank, he said, and "a strong interest for Australia".

Mr Zoellick said that failing states "are dangerous to their neighbours". He nominated Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Cambodia as fragile states: "And frankly the development community has struggled with how to deal with these countries," he said.

Australia has extended a de facto security guarantee to the South Pacific, sending police and troops to the Solomon Islands and East Timor, but the economic prospects for the region are grim.

In a report published in August last year, the World Bank recommended guest worker schemes as an important way of creating economic futures for the South Pacific states.

New Zealand acted on the report to create a scheme that allows guest workers from the Pacific stays of between seven and nine months.

The author of the report, Dr Manjula Luthria, said last night that "it's early days, but so far it's working reasonably well".

She said guest worker programs sent vital streams of money to the Pacific states as workers sent remittances home, constituting about 30 per cent of GDP in Tonga and Samoa, according to official figures, and perhaps double this proportion in reality.

She said that the programs were also critical in creating a skills base and a better-informed citizenry. "The best and the brightest were leaving already, and the rest were trapped there."

She said the Government had valid concerns, including the possibilities of overstaying and of exploitation of Pacific workers, but that a scheme could be designed to minimise these.

Much of rural Australia is clamouring for casual labour.

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland, said last night: "I think it is inequitable that there are lots of backpacker visas - mainly for middle-class kids from Europe - to do fruit picking and other work, but there are not opportunities for people from Pacific islands."

--Peter Hartcher Political Editor ? Sydney Morning Herald

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