MALLEE farmers will have access to more seasonal workers after the federal government struck a deal with the UK to help pave the way for an agriculture specific visa.
The sought-after visa will mean 10,000 UK backpackers will no longer be required to complete 88 days of farm work before extending their working holidays, under an in-principle free trade agreement with the UK.
The visa will provide Australian farms access to workers from the UK in addition to the 10 ASEAN nations: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
They will be permitted to work nine months a year, three years in a row – for skilled and unskilled positions.
Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud said the new seasonal agricultural worker visa would “mirror the existing Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and will add to the pool of workers available to work on Australian farms”.
“Like the Seasonal Worker Program, the new visa arrangement will have protections to ensure workers are protected, not subject to exploitation and that the visa is not misused,” he said.
The federal government aimed to have the new visa in place before the end of the year.
The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) welcomed the new visa, with president Emma Germano saying farmers had called for and been promised the visa for too long.
“This has been a long time coming and is a huge breakthrough for industry,” she said.
“The labour shortages we have faced in the past 18 months are well known, but broader issues with labour supply and quality have been ongoing without a solution for years.”
Member for Mallee Anne Webster said workers who entered the country on the agriculture visa would be connected to labour hire companies for employment, as they were in the SWP.
But there were some more protocols she would continue to lobby to “deal with the exploitation that occurs, sadly, in our (agriculture) industry”.
“When people enter Australia, they should have a tax file number,” she said, and labour hire companies should only be run by permanent residents to avoid “people setting up their shop (with) less regularisation”.
Ms Webster said quarantine facilities, similar to South Australia’s site at Paringa, needed to be established in Victoria.
