The recent announcement by Qantas to delay till the end of the year any plans for its international flights to resume will have come has a further setback to the Solomon Islands struggling tourism industry, dependent so much as in the past on most of its visitors coming from Australia.
In further gloomy news, the Australian government announced a few days ago that its international air borders would likely stay closed until the end of 2022. Such a move could see Qantas once more having to delay its international flights unless some form of travel bubble arrangement with countries comes into play, as is presently the case between Australia and New Zealand.
I believe realising the plight of many of its Pacific neighbours, particularly those, like the Solomon Islands, that have tourism-focused economies, New Zealand has announced, today, that it has pledged $120 million more in economic support for the Pacific, reprioritised from an Official Development Assistance fund.
The funding will be used by New Zealand Pacific neighbours to help households get through the ongoing Covid crisis, and support businesses to manage the uncertainty of closed borders.
It is not known, at this time, how much of the promised economic support funding will be received by the Solomon Islands.
Meanwhile, there was good news for187 workers who flew out of the country last Friday to work in various farms and abattoirs in Australia.
They had been recruited through the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) and contracted under the Regional Workforce Management (RWM) and Powerpac, two of the larger Australian Approved Employers (AE) who are currently recruiting workers in Solomon Islands in large numbers.
The workers were quarantined at the Grantham Quarantine Facility within the Lockyer Valley region for 14 days upon arrival before moving to farms where they will be working for the next 2 and 3 years respectively.
The workers were a mix of those who had already been in the Work Ready Pool and a few of those just recruited through the WRP. This was the fifth group of workers to leave Solomon Islands since the labour mobility scheme restarted in November last year.
With the recent mobilization, Solomon Islands now has 1053 workers in Australia with demand still growing significantly now that COVID-19 risk management initiatives are in place.
Solomon Islands is currently ranked in the top three countries with high numbers of seasonal workers in Australia and working towards reaching a projected target of 2000 workers for 2021 by December.
All seasonal workers go through the Solomon Islands Government recruitment process including fitness testing, interviews conducted in English, drug tests specific for RWM, Medical checks and Police clearances.
Sources. GCU Media Release, Radio New Zealand, Solomon Times Online and the UK press.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
