The number of Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers lodging protection claims in Australia has fallen sharply since a 2023 peak, marking a significant development in a problem that drew sustained attention from Pacific governments and advocates. New figures show asylum claims by PALM workers reached nearly 900 in the third quarter of 2023 but dropped to about 300 by the final quarter of 2025. The share of PALM workers applying for protection, which rose to between 2% and 2.8% during 2020–23, has fallen in recent years to just above 1% — still higher than the roughly 0.5% typical before COVID-19, but a clear reversal of the pandemic-era surge.
Analysts say the downturn cannot be explained by a drop in the size of the PALM cohort. The number of PALM workers in Australia has been largely stable, with 29,955 recorded at the end of 2022 and 28,535 at the end of 2025. Instead, several policy and administrative changes appear to have discouraged bogus protection claims and reduced the time workers spend on bridging visas that allow them to work while claims are processed.
Key among those changes was a government funding package announced in October 2023 that allowed the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to speed up protection-claim processing. DHA increased its number of protection-determination decisions by 80% comparing 2021–23 with 2024–25. Since the second quarter of 2024 determinations have outpaced lodgements. The department’s focus on PALM-country nationals was even sharper: determinations for citizens of PALM countries rose by 106% over the same interval, and the number of PALM workers awaiting a departmental decision fell from about 300 at the end of 2022 to just 50 at the end of 2025.
Officials and researchers link faster processing to the reduced incentive to lodge spurious claims. A rejected protection application can be appealed, and prolonged appeals historically prolonged a worker’s lawful onshore stay and work rights; shrinking the window between lodgement and decision reduces that potential benefit. But unresolved issues remain: total protection lodgements from all countries remain high — more than 5,000 a quarter — and appeals processing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal continues to create long waits for some applicants.
Beyond faster decision-making, the DHA ran a publicity campaign over the last two years aimed at discouraging protection-visa use as a route to work and Medicare, messaging delivered through social media, industry groups and community events. The 2023 PALM scheme reforms, which tightened regulation and strengthened protections for workers, are also likely contributors. Researcher Peter Mares noted in a recent PALM report that the proportion of PALM workers leaving their employers — a symptom of forced mobility that can precipitate protection claims — fell from about 10% in 2020–21 to just 3% in 2024–25.
Other policy options, such as the Pacific Engagement Visa, have been introduced as alternative pathways for some workers, reducing the perceived need to seek protection visas for work purposes. Nevertheless, advocates caution that while the recent trends are encouraging, the protection-claim phenomenon is not eradicated and remains a serious issue: some lodged claims are legitimately made, the overall onshore protection caseload is still substantial, and tribunal backlogs mean appeals can still create long periods of uncertainty for applicants.
This decline in PALM-related protection applications is the latest development in an evolving policy area that has featured ongoing coverage since 2022. Observers say the combination of quicker determinations, targeted public messaging, and tighter scheme rules appears to have reduced incentives for misuse of protection processes, but continued monitoring and engagement with Pacific sending governments will be required to sustain and verify the trend.