Labour Lines and Colonial Power: Indigenous and Pacific Islander Labour Mobility in Australia

Abstract

This chapter draws on the preliminary findings of a wider ongoing research that has considered the well-being of Pasifika Trans-Tasman migrants moving from New Zealand to Australia. What emerges in the study is a holistic notion of Pasifika well-being; a significant concept that has influenced the decision-making of Pasifika regarding migration and employment. This concept in turn has influenced the different labour mobility experiences of Pasifika Trans-Tasman migrants in Brisbane. Different Pasifika Trans-Tasman migrant groups have experienced varying levels of labour mobility as a result of a combination of the different policies introduced around the time of their migration and their perceptions of a ‘good and happy life’. The purpose of this discussion is to present the perceptions and experiences of Pasifika that was recorded in Brisbane during 2015-2017. The lived realities voiced in this discussion will provide further insight into the well-being of Pasifika and their labour mobility experiences in Brisbane since the 1990s till now. In particular, this discussion will attempt to extend understandings of how Pasifika migrating from New Zealand have dealt with the challenges and opportunities that have arisen in the context of changing Australian regulations. This chapter is part of a collection of works in the book: Labour Lines and Colonial Power: Indigenous and Pacific Islander Labour Mobility in Australia, edited by Victoria Stead and Jon Altman, ANU University Press, 2019. Drawing together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and geographers, this book critically explores experiences of labour mobility by Indigenous peoples and Pacific Islanders, including Māori, within Australia. Locating these new expressions of labour mobility within historical patterns of movement, contributors interrogate the contours and continuities of Australian coloniality in its diverse and interconnected expressions.