Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell said Labor’s changes to the working holiday maker system will destroy regional communities and create enormous panic across farming communities.
“Labor’s changes to the backpacker visa have gone from bad to worse and will destroy our farming communities,” Mr Birrell said.
“It means about one in five will miss out on year two applications, and five in six will miss out on year three applications. This is a horrendous outcome and much worse than anything we could have expected.
“Year two will cut the backpacker intake from 57,000 to 45,000 and year three will cut from 31,000 to 5000. This is a cut in numbers over years two and three by more than 40 per cent.
“Labor has allowed net overseas migration (NOM) to run out of control, and now they are pulling the handbrake on producing Australia’s food and fibre – even though backpackers have minimal impact on NOM numbers.
“As it stands now, farmers are telling us workers they expected to arrive have not arrived, crops still need to be harvested, cows still need to be milked and the workload is being pushed onto fewer people.
“Broadacre farmers and harvesting contractors regularly bring back the same experienced people from countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada and because they know the machinery, understand the work and can be trusted during the most important weeks of the farming year.
“You can’t put inexperienced operators in that equipment.
“The government appears to be targeting the workers regional Australia needs, to cover for Labor’s uncontrolled migration disaster.”