The NFF Horticulture Council today urged the Australian Government to immediately restore normal processing of Working Holiday Maker visa applications, and to set out plainly what it intends for Australia’s seasonal horticulture workforce.
On the Department of Home Affairs’ own published advice, the largest part of the program — new applications made from offshore — may now take several months to process. That advice sits alongside published processing times for the same visas measured in days.
Executive Officer of the NFF Horticulture Council, Richard Shannon, said the timing is critical.
“Horticulture’s workforce demand rises and falls across the country depending on the crop and the region. But it lifts sharply through summer, and the weeks before Christmas are the peak.
“Several months from now is not an abstraction. It is Christmas. The people who would pick and pack that fruit need to apply, be granted, arrive and be placed well before then. On the Department’s own advice, that window is closing while we speak.”
Mr Shannon said the sector was not asking for special treatment, only for the ordinary courtesies of good process.
“Governments are entitled to change migration settings. What industry asks in return is that changes of consequence are consulted on before they are made, announced and explained when they are, and accompanied by a timeframe. More than that, we ask for a genuine ability to shape them — so that settings arrived at are ones that work on farm and meet the interests of the growers who rely on them. That is not a high bar, and it has not been met here.”
Mr Shannon said the Government had shown before that it understands the stakes when a critical input to food production is disrupted.
“When fuel and fertiliser supplies were threatened, the Prime Minister got on a plane, went to our trading partners and secured them. That was the right call, and industry applauded him.
“Labour is no less critical an input. All the fuel and fertiliser you want count for nothing if there is no one there to harvest and pack the produce. The difference on this occasion is that the disruption did not originate overseas, and the remedy is entirely within the Government’s hands.”
Working Holiday Makers fill around one in seven farm jobs nationally and around 44 per cent of horticulture roles at peak harvest. They sustain regional economies, keep fresh produce moving to market, and help hold down prices at the checkout.
The Council also noted the release of One Nation’s migration policy and said two features of it were instructive.
“Whatever view one takes of the scale of the reductions proposed, One Nation has done two things that are worth acknowledging,” Mr Shannon said.
“First, it has expressly excluded the PALM scheme and the Working Holiday Maker program from its net overseas migration target and confirmed that current settings for both would continue unchanged. That reflects an understanding that seasonal, temporary programs tied to a defined task and season are a different proposition to permanent or long-stay migration and should be considered separately.
“Second, it has published a target, a timeframe and the mechanisms by which it says the target will be met. That allows industry, and the public, to examine the proposition on its merits and to respond.
“The contrast with the present situation is difficult to avoid. Seasonal programs are being swept up in a broader migration conversation without distinction, and changes are being made administratively without a stated intent, a target, or a plan to get there. Industry is left to infer policy from the movement of the processing queue. Employers are asked to make workforce plans without any confidence.”
The Council said the immediate priority was straightforward.
“Restore processing. Deal with the applications sitting in the system. Then agree a durable, transparent framework for a secure and reliable seasonal workforce — one that does not change without notice and does not need to be relitigated every harvest,” Mr Shannon said.
“And let that conversation be a tripartite one. The Government has made tripartism its benchmark for workplace reform — employers, industry, government, workers and their representatives at the table together. We welcome that benchmark. We would simply ask that it be applied here.
“Decisions about who works in Australian horticulture, under what conditions and for how long, are exactly the decisions that benchmark was designed for. They should not be made quietly, by one party, through the processing queue.”
The Council’s call follows last week’s joint industry press conference at Parliament House and a joint letter to the Prime Minister signed by the Council and several of its members among more than 20 peak bodies spanning agriculture, tourism, accommodation, hospitality and small business.
ENDS
About the Horticulture Council
The Council is the recognised peak body for forming policy and advocating on behalf of the national horticulture industry. Established in 2017, it now comprises 19 national commodity and state-based horticulture bodies.
It is a member of the National Farmers’ Federation, free to establish and advance its own policy positions and responses issues impacting the horticulture industry.
For more information about the Council click here.