By DAVID BRAITHWAITE
THERE has been a mixed response from the farming community to the federal government’s changes to the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visa program.
While the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) was critical, Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) welcomed the government’s decision to restore agriculture as a priority for skilled visa processing and renewed its call for the backlog of existing applications to be expedited.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke recently announced that Ministerial Direction 119 would be updated to include agriculture among priority occupations, recognising the sector’s importance to regional Australia.
Mr Burke said Ministerial Direction 119 will be updated to prioritise migrants who have skills Australia needs in areas such as construction and agriculture.
“What we’ll be doing is updating that and adding to the priority list, construction, agriculture, fisheries and teaching,” he told the National Press Club.
“The fact we are doing that allows us to restore the normal processing speed that we were previously at for primary applications for working holiday-makers.
The move is part of a government plan to reduce net overseas migration from the current level of 305,000 to the budget target of 245,000 this financial year and 225,00 the following year. The change follows sustained advocacy from ADF and the broader agriculture sector after agricultural visa applicants were pushed to the lowest processing priority under Direction 119.
Farmers had already invested heavily in workforce planning, recruitment, and visa sponsorship arrangements.
ADF president Ben Bennett said the decision was a positive step, but warned restoring agriculture to the priority list would mean little without action on the backlog of applications already in the system.
Mr Bennett also noted ADF had significant concerns about changes to the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visa program.
Mr Bennett said the government had accepted what dairy farmers had been saying – that agriculture needs access to the right people, with the right skills, at the right time with timely visa processing when local workers cannot be found.
“We provided evidence from dairy farmers, highlighted the impact on regional communities and food security, and made the case that agriculture should not have been pushed to the back of the queue,” he said.
“This is a positive and welcome step for dairy farmers, who have been caught in uncertainty through no fault of their own, but there’s more to be done.
“Changing the priority list is only the first step. Questions remain about the backlog of agricultural visa applications that accumulated after Direction 119 came into effect.
“The backlog did not occur by accident. It was created as a direct consequence of government policy and now needs to be addressed.
“We need clarity on when the revised processing arrangements will commence, whether existing applications will be automatically reprioritised, how applications will be handled and what processing timeframes farmers can expect.
“There are dairy farmers who have already been left in limbo for months while applications sit in queues. Restoring agriculture to the priority list must be accompanied by a plan to clear that backlog.”
Mr Bennett said proposed changes to the WHM program should mean processing speeds for many primary WHM applications will return to previous levels, but ADF had serious concerns around the introduction of ballots for second and third-year visas.
The second-year ballot will be capped at 45,000 places, compared with around 57,000 people qualifying last year.
The third-year ballot will fall to just 5000 places, compared with around 31,000 people in that group last year.
“That third-year reduction is enormous and should ring alarm bells across regional Australia,” Mr Bennett said.
The VFF has warned the government that its changes to the WHM visa system showed it was failing to listen to farmers and understand the workforce realities facing agriculture.
VFF president Ryan Milgate said the plan was making it harder for farmers to access the workers they needed at the very time they were heading into harvest and peak production.
“Farmers are heading into harvest and peak production, yet the government is introducing changes that would strip thousands of workers from an industry already under enormous workforce pressure,” he said.
“The ballot significantly diminishes the reward for taking on farm work, yet there has been no modelling released on how this change could affect the number of Working Holiday Makers choosing agriculture. It is reckless, with potential catastrophic outcomes.”
Mr Milgate said the government’s proposed visa processing time of up to three months was out of step with the realities of agricultural production.
“Farmers cannot simply switch their operations off while governments debate migration policy. When crops are ready, they need to be harvested,” he said.
“Every day of uncertainty matters when farmers are dealing with seasonal production and a workforce that needs to be in place when the crop is ready.”
While the VFF welcomed the partial restoration of agriculture to the priority visa processing queue, it believed the move was “a bare minimum”.
“It is entirely fair that an industry dealing with unpredictable seasons and highly time-sensitive labour demands should sit above industries such as teaching and construction, where workforce demands are far more predictable,” he said.
The opposition claims the government has “made a complete mess” of the WHM visa, following revelations that the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) will be forced to submit applications to fast-track backpackers during critical planting and harvesting seasons.
Federal Member for Gippsland and shadow agriculture minister Darren Chester said the changes would add extra pressure on farmers during peak periods.
“Labor’s mess should not be up to our farmers to fix,” he said.
“Labor does not understand farming or agriculture and so has forced the industry to work it out itself. After announcing huge cuts in backpacker visas, Labor has been forced to backtrack just days later.
“The short-term process is an admission that Labor has badly botched this.
