A working holiday visa changed Sydney Schetter\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
The barista came to Australia from a small town outside Edmonton in Alberta in 2019. When she returns to Canada after her visa runs out next month, she won\u2019t be alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy partner, who\u2019s Australian, is probably going to come next year when his visa gets approved,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
During that seven-year stretch, Schetter was able to travel around Australia and abroad, learn a trade and make friends from around the world.<\/p>\n
That was only possible because she lived in regional Queensland during the Covid-19 restrictions. Her nominally one-year visa was repeatedly extended due to her work at the Watermark hotel on Townsville\u2019s Strand waterfront, and thanks to loosening of visa rules early in the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Schetter says she\u2019d never have done any of that if the federal Labor government\u2019s new rules had been in place.<\/p>\n
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke<\/a>, announced last month that the government would cap the number of second-year working visa holders at 45,000, down from 57,000, and third year at just 5,000, less than one-sixth the approximately 31,000 issued currently.<\/p>\n Applicants will enter a ballot to be one of the lucky few. Holidaymakers from the United Kingdom will be exempt, as they already are from regional work.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even bother applying for my second year, maybe,\u201d Schetter says.<\/p>\n That wouldn\u2019t just crimp working holidaymakers\u2019 love lives, it might also harm the economy. North Queensland\u2019s business community says they are so dependent on workers like Schetter they\u2019re concerned that if short-term visa holders like her do choose to stay away it could mean insolvency.<\/p>\n double quotation markWe need migration, and we need backpackers, particularly in regional Queensland and regional AustraliaMichael Healy MP<\/p>\n Australia has been issuing one-year working holiday visas since the Whitlam government. John Howard added a second year in 2005, on condition the worker do at least 88 days\u2019 work in a prescribed industry in regional Australia, a category that defined so broadly it includes the Gold Coast, Newcastle and the entire states of Tasmania and South Australia plus the Northern Territory. There\u2019s been a third year available since 2019.<\/p>\n Businesses worry the reform will reduce the value of the 88-day rule, meaning workers may choose Sydney or Melbourne over Townsville.<\/p>\n That would have a real impact on worker numbers. According to a recent survey by the Townsville chamber of commerce, about 70% of local businesses employed at least 10 working holiday visa holders, well over 60% of their total staff headcount.<\/p>\n Bart Furst, a director of Kickon Group, which owns the Watermark hotel, says they can employ upwards of 40 or 60 people on a working holiday visa, out of a total of 120 staff. Townsville has a low unemployment rate and Furst says he can\u2019t convince locals to work there.<\/p>\n Sydney Schetter found work at the Watermark Hotel, run by Bart Furst. Photograph: Andrew Messenger\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of [working holiday visa makers] have said they\u2019d look at New Zealand or something before even visiting here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He says they could be forced to cut back hours, as many businesses did when backpacker labour dried up early in the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u2018What\u2019s the argument for changing this\u2019?<\/p>\n The business backlash has spilled over into local politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, who grew up in Ingham and often reminds the state his family are Italian migrants who worked the region\u2019s cane fields, has repeatedly called the policy \u201cnuts\u201d.<\/p>\n Townsville LNP MP Adam Baillie says working holiday visa holders are \u201ccentral to our economy here in north Queensland\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn regional Queensland, we need every hand we can get.\u201d<\/p>\n Townsville LNP MP Adam Baillie. Photograph: Andrew Messenger\/The Guardian<\/p>\n In Cairns<\/a>, even the Labor MP is unhappy. There are an estimated 5,500 working holiday visa holders in the popular backpacker destination, according to the local chamber of commerce.<\/p>\n State MP Michael Healy, a former hotelier and current shadow minister for tourism, says since last month\u2019s immigration reduction announcement he has received angry calls from everyone from publicans in the Atherton Tablelands to Great Barrier Reef tourism operators.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need migration, and we need backpackers, particularly in regional Queensland and regional Australia,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Healy says the policy would slow the growth of Cairns. It could even knock the city into recession.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the argument to changing this? What is the science behind that?\u201d<\/p>\n The member for Cairns, Michael Healy. Photograph: Darren England\/AAP<\/p>\n Matt Smith, the federal Labor MP for Leichhardt and a Cairns local, will lead a delegation of local business leaders to Canberra to meet Burke. Smith says his role is \u201cmaking sure the far north\u2019s voice is being heard\u201d \u2013 but isn\u2019t against the policy. They aren\u2019t asking for a reversal, of course.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that no one has objected to was that the numbers have been unsustainable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone acknowledges that it\u2019s now about refining the process so that the workforce is going where the workforce needs to be, and it needs to be in the far north.\u201d<\/p>\n Announcing the changes, Burke said his immigration policy would slash net overseas migration (Nom) to about 225,000 in 2027-28, down from 292,000, and would \u201censure that our migration system can be better targeted<\/a> to the current needs of Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n The Coalition responded with an even higher cut to migration<\/a>, reducing the figure to 100,000 for the first two years from 2028-29. One Nation is aiming<\/a> for zero net migration. After three years [when their policies would mean net negative Nom], One Nation said it would set a Nom \u201cceiling\u201d of 130,000 a year.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve got no young people\u2019<\/p>\n Working holidaymakers represent Australia\u2019s second-largest source of immigration. About 78,300 arrived in the country <\/a>in 2024\u201325, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, compared with 146,700 university students. There were about 206,000 working holidaymakers the country at last count.<\/p>\n
The Nom target would then rise to 130,000 in the third year and 160,000 in 2031-32.<\/p>\n