The Other Side of the Pacific Visa: Is Australia Offering Opportunity or Taking Advantage?
By Tonga Independent News
When Australia launched its Pacific Engagement Visa scheme in 2024, it was hailed as a bold gesture of friendship, an open door for up to 3,000 Pacific Islanders each year to settle permanently and work in Australia. For Tonga, 150 places were allocated in the first year, and the same again for 2025. It was sold as a rare opportunity, a pathway to a better life in one of the world’s most developed economies.
But behind the headlines and the hopeful ballots lies a more complicated truth. It is one that the Government of Tonga must confront, and soon.
For many Tongans who win the lottery of selection, the move to Australia is not a golden ticket. It is the beginning of a new kind of struggle. While wages are undoubtedly higher than what can be earned at home, the cost of living is equally punishing. Rent in major cities swallows half a household’s income. Groceries, fuel, childcare and transport are priced in dollars that stretch thin by the end of the month. It is not uncommon for new migrants to work two jobs and still live from paycheck to paycheck. And when remittances are expected by family, by community, by obligation, the stress multiplies.
The work itself is often hard and unglamorous. Migrants find themselves cleaning, caring, driving, packing. They do what Australians cannot or will not. These are the essential, uncelebrated jobs that keep economies running, and they are jobs Australia needs filled. That is what this visa is really about. Not generosity, but labour shortages. Not a hand up for the Pacific, but a supply chain for Australian businesses.
Tonga is paying for this arrangement in ways that numbers cannot show. We are losing teachers and nurses, tradesmen and young leaders. People who would otherwise build businesses, serve in clinics, coach teams and teach children. Their departure leaves holes that are not easily patched. Our hospitals feel it. Our schools feel it. Our families feel it. And most of all, our future feels it.
What’s more troubling is that many who leave under these so-called opportunities don’t always find the life they imagined. There is pride in hard work, yes. There is dignity in sacrifice. But there is also loneliness, exhaustion and a growing question whispered in quiet homes: is it worth it?
Of course, some of our people do make it work. They build good lives overseas and find a sense of purpose and stability. But for many others, the path is far less certain, and the cost far greater than they imagined.
This is where the Government of Tonga must take a stand. Migration should never be the only option. It should not be the default answer to broken systems or limited choices. If we want our people to stay, if we want them to believe in this country, then we must make life here worth living. That means decent jobs, affordable housing, fair wages and real investment in the sectors that matter. Agriculture, fisheries, tourism, education and small enterprise are where our future lies. It means training young people not for export, but for national service and self-belief.
It also means telling the truth about life abroad. Not to shame those who leave, but to offer perspective to those who think leaving is the only way to succeed. Australia offers a way out, but not always a way forward. And the further our people go, the more we must ask who is left to carry Tonga.
If Australia benefits from our labour, it must also invest in our future. But more than that, we must invest in ourselves. Migration will always play a role in our story. But it must not become the whole story. The dream should not be to escape Tonga, but to build a Tonga no one wants to leave.
Tu’ifua Vailena
