Australia is relaxing restrictions on backpackers and other visitors getting working holiday visas, allowing travellers to stay a year longer and work in more areas of the country.
In Australia, immigration officials give working holiday visas (also called 417 or 462 visas) to people of a specific age range and from specific countries to stay, travel and work in Australia for a limited time.
According to the new plan, backpackers will no longer have to leave jobs every six months and will be able to triple the length of their stay if they do extra agricultural work.
The age limit for working holiday visas for Canada and Germany has also been lifted from 30 to 35.
In addition, Pacific islanders who take up seasonal work in Australia will be able to stay three months longer, according to the new policy. Some 6,000 people from the Pacific Islands took part in the six-month seasonal worker programme last year.
The plan is aimed at largely helping rural Australian farmers who are struggling to fill critical job shortages.
“Backpackers can come and have a great time, but every dollar they earn helps those regions,” Morrison told reporters at a strawberry farm in south-east Queensland.
Some 419,000 backpackers visited Australia last year and spent 1.4 million nights in regional areas where they spend US$661 million, government figures show.
According to the Home Affairs Department, Australia granted 210,456 working holiday visas in 2017-18 (ending in June 30 this year).
According to AusVeg, an association of vegetable growers, more than 50 per cent of workers in the Australian horticulture industry are backpackers, making them a “structural feature” of the country’s workforce.
Tourists can apply for visitor visas online and find out the differences between 417 or 462 on the Department of Home Affairs website. – dpa
