{"id":12619,"date":"2025-07-22T05:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T05:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12619\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T05:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T05:27:13","slug":"lottery-for-permanent-residence-nears-close-in-voting-thousands-enter-pacific-engagement-visa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/12619\/","title":{"rendered":"Lottery for permanent residence nears close in voting; thousands enter Pacific engagement visa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy said: \u201cThe Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world and the most significant Pacific policy this country has undertaken in the last 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DFAT spokesperson said it provided \u201ca pathway for mobility with dignity as climate impacts worsen\u201d as well as a mutually beneficial security guarantee.<\/p>\n

Climate change is explicitly acknowledged by both countries as the reason for the treaty. However, applicants do not have to prove climate impacts to be eligible for migration as might be the case with a specific \u201cclimate visa\u201d.<\/p>\n

The treaty restricts the right of Tuvalu to enter security arrangements with other countries, a fact that some have criticised, including former Tuvaluan prime minister Enele Sopoaga, who accused Australia of \u201cweaponising [Tuvalu\u2019s] poverty and vulnerabilities to its advantage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tuvaluan lawyer Lisepa Paeniu, who recently lived and studied in Australia, said it did not surprise her that half the country had applied because there was nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n

Paeniu told this masthead a year ago<\/a> that she intended to apply, along with her partner and children. Now in New Zealand on a temporary visa, Paeniu confirmed on Friday that she had entered the ballot.<\/p>\n

\"Lisepa<\/p>\n

Lisepa Paeniu (left) and Tekita Neemia with their children, Laban (front) and Nehemiah.Credit: Simon Schluter<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so did everyone else in my extended family, given our root crops can no longer grow in our traditional food garden nor is there enough land as the coastal erosion is causing a significant loss to our already small parcels of land,\u201d Paeniu said.<\/p>\n

Australia has a bilateral treaty with Tuvalu because the Pacific nation requested it. Other countries in the region are discussing climate mobility through multilateral channels such as the Pacific Islands Forum. The end goal is not just to provide opportunities to emigrate from islands to Australia or New Zealand, but also mobility between Pacific islands.<\/p>\n

The Australian government announced the Pacific engagement visa in 2024 and the Tuvalu visa is now part of that, with its own dedicated stream.<\/p>\n

The following countries were invited to participate \u2013 Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The Marshall Islands, Samoa and Kiribati opted out in the first year but remain eligible, and final discussions are under way about participation in the second ballot to open later this year.<\/p>\n

Both types of Pacific engagement visa work the same way, with the idea that immigration will not solely be one way, but enable islanders to go back and forth between Australia and their home countries. Normally, permanent residents who leave Australia face a financial penalty to return.<\/p>\n

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One person who knows more than most about the plight of the millions of people already displaced around the world due to climate is Andrew Harper, the Australian who now serves as special adviser on climate action to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Harper notes that extreme weather events, as well as drought and extreme heat, can accelerate conflict, and have a far greater impact on people displaced by conflict and violence.<\/p>\n

A report recently prepared by Harper\u2019s office for the UN Security Council says 90 million displaced people are living in countries with high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, and nearly half of all forcibly displaced people are bearing the burden of both conflict and the adverse effects of climate change. These include countries such as Sudan, Syria, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia.<\/p>\n

Over the past 10 years, weather-related disasters have caused 220 million internal displacements \u2013 equivalent to 60,000 displacements a day. The problem is set to get worse, fast.<\/p>\n

By 2040, the number of countries projected to face extreme climate-related hazards is expected to rise from three to 65, the report says, including many refugee-hosting countries such as Cameroon, Chad, South Sudan, Nigeria, Brazil, India and Iraq.<\/p>\n

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The number of people living in the Pacific is small by comparison, but Harper said the Falepili Union was a significant milestone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround the world we are looking for precedents like this, and this [treaty] is important,\u201d Harper said. \u201cIt provides confidence for others to do something smart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jane McAdam, Scientia professor of law and the founding director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, said Tuvaluans do not necessarily see the visa as a way to evacuate their nation. Rather they want to be able to move more freely around the Pacific for work and education to build up their economic resilience as climate change hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is, it\u2019s not purely about the impacts of climate change,\u201d McAdam said. \u201cIt\u2019s much bigger than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This might be the case, but the visa is unlike other work visas. For both types of Pacific engagement visa, applicants pay $25 and must pass police and health checks, but selection is otherwise random. Reflecting the humanitarian nature of the agreement, the system specifically allows people with disabilities and has no age restrictions.<\/p>\n

\"Angeline<\/p>\n

Angeline Heine- Reimers, director of National Energy Office in the Marshall Islands.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n

Angeline Heine-Reimers, the director of the Marshall Islands\u2019 National Energy Office, said in March that the government was discussing visa options with Australia, but was concerned not to exacerbate brain drain.<\/p>\n

Citizens of the Marshall Islands have the right to live and work in the United States through a security pact because of the now-independent country\u2019s history as a US protectorate and legacy of nuclear testing<\/a>. There are now more Marshallese people living in the US than in the Marshall Islands, census figures show.<\/p>\n

While the Marshallese have been emigrating for decades, it is speeding up as climate change worsens. Eve Burns, 28, a journalist in the Marshall Islands, says people\u2019s homes are regularly inundated and it is becoming too expensive. \u201cEveryone is leaving,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Eve<\/p>\n

Eve Burns, 28, from the Marshall Islands, who says \u201ceveryone is leaving\u201d because of climate change.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n

Heine-Reimers said people were driven to migrate because of sea level rises and warming oceans destroying scarce land and food sources, but it also meant loss of identity and being forced to assimilate into a different culture that was not always welcoming.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have big countries establishing strict migrant laws and fostering anti-migration [feeling], but they will not extend their scope of perception to see that people are being forced to migrate for many reasons, and one of them for us here is climate change,\u201d Heine-Reimers said.<\/p>\n

Reverend Faaimata (Mata) Havea Hiliau, a Tongan woman and the head of the Uniting Church in NSW and the ACT, was at both the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations climate talks in Azerbaijan last year.<\/p>\n

\"Reverend<\/p>\n

Reverend Faaimata Havea Hiliau, the moderator of the NSW\/ACT synod of the Uniting Church of Australia.Credit: James Brickwood<\/p>\n

Hiliau is concerned about their wellbeing once islanders arrive in Australia, especially if they are relocated inland away from their cultural connection to the ocean and forced to grapple with unaffordable housing and rising heat levels in western Sydney or outer Melbourne.<\/p>\n

She is not surprised by the overwhelming demand for these visas.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir home has been washed away,\u201d Hiliau said. \u201cThey\u2019re desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get to the heart of what\u2019s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy said: \u201cThe Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty is the first agreement of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-12619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}