Australia has seen a sharp increase in the number of British working holiday-makers in the last year, thanks to recent visa changes. The changes see young British visitors no longer required to work in a regional area and afford them a three-year stay instead of the previous two-year maximum.
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00:00The concerns aren't really so much about those aspects that you mentioned. The real issue
00:09here is that Australia has had a non-discriminatory immigration policy since the end of the white
00:15Australia policy in the early 1970s. And this measure, which was an aspect of the free trade
00:24agreement that the Morrison government signed with the UK government back in 2021, gives
00:32UK nationals or exempts them from certain rules that all other citizens of countries
00:40that Australia has backpacker agreements with are subject to. So in some respects, getting
00:47rid of these restrictions is a good thing, because these are rules that in some respects
00:53indenture workers to farms as a condition of getting their visas. So Brits aren't subject
01:03to that, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. But given that all other nationals
01:10are subject to the same rules, there's an element of unfairness here that hasn't really
01:14been a feature of Australia's immigration policy since we scrapped white Australia 50
01:19years ago.
01:20So there's a bit of a hierarchy that's been described. What's wrong with a hierarchy?
01:27Having a discriminatory immigration policy like Australia had for decades led to all
01:33sorts of problems. Socially, it was discriminatory. So there was fundamental issues of unfairness
01:42and inequity. That was a feature of that policy. It also led to significant problems
01:51with Australia's trading relationships with countries that we now have very strong relationships
01:55with across Asia. So walking back that policy or policies that could create a precedent
02:02that could make it easier for future governments to put in place preferential measures, I think
02:09are regrettable.
02:10So you're concerned that the Australian government could now go down this same path with selected
02:16other countries?
02:18It's not clear why. Britain is the country that's been singled out here in terms of trade.
02:24It's not nearly as significant a country as it used to be. And look, we've seen various
02:31measures put into free trade agreements that have these sorts of effects. Look, it's not
02:37a bad thing that people from the UK don't have to work 88 days on a farm as a condition
02:45of getting another visa. I guess my argument is if that's removed for them, it should be
02:50removed for everyone. That would be a fair policy.
02:56What about the fact that we have farmers now saying, though, that there's not actually
03:01a shortage in farm workers now anyway, so it doesn't look like it's caused a problem?
03:07Yes, I think that's in the context of the working holidaymaker program, the intakes
03:12under that program, being quite high. So the farm sector, especially horticulture, fruit
03:19and vegetable farmers, they're very reliant upon working holidaymakers to pick their crops
03:26during the high season. It's hard to get people to the farms, to remote and regional areas.
03:34So the working holidaymaker scheme and other parts of our temporary migration program play
03:38a very important role there. So I think it's in the context of a high, relatively high
03:45intake over the past year of working holidaymakers coming from other countries who still are
03:50subject to that rule, that if they want to get a second or third year visa, they've got
03:55to do 88 days in regional areas, typically on farms.
03:58Yes, so it sounds like you're kind of essentially saying this is a throwback to older times
04:03with kind of unfortunate overtones or undertones.
04:07Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think that this, when the free trade agreement was negotiated
04:11in 2021, this was a provision that not much attention was gained at the time, was paid
04:18to it at the time. But it does kind of create a hierarchy or in effect a two-tier working
04:25holidaymaker system where there's one rule for people from the UK and there's another
04:28rule for everyone else. And I think we really just need to be careful about those sort of
04:33hierarchies or tiers within our migration system, because they can have discriminatory effects,
04:40which governments and people across society have for many, many decades worked very hard
04:46to undo to ensure that our migration system was as merit-based as possible.