Australia lures Asians to farm labour with new agriculture visa and path to permanent residency

A new agriculture visa aimed at plugging a labour shortage will allow migrant farm workers into Australia for three years and in some cases beyond

It is targeted primarily at Asians, but advocate groups warn it could fuel exploitation and may be partly motivated by perceptions that this group is ‘easier to control and cheaper’

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Indonesian Audi Melsom has documented his experience of working on farms in Australia on YouTube. Photo: Audi Melsom

Published: 6:00am, 30 Aug 2021Updated: 6:05am, 30 Aug 2021

Three years ago, Audi Melsom quit his job as a designer at MetroTV, one of Indonesia’s largest television broadcasters, and headed to the Northern Territory in Australia, aiming to work odd jobs and explore the country.

Like most Indonesians on Australia’s Working Holiday Maker visa – a scheme that annually allows up to 5,000 Indonesians below the age of 30 to spend up to three years in Australia working and vacationing – Audi worked as a farm labourer.

Audi has picked mangoes, watermelons and pumpkins in the Northern Territory, raspberries and tomatoes in Queensland, and grapes and figs in Victoria, earning anywhere from A$20 (US$14.5) to A$35 per hour. In some cases, he was a “piece-rate” worker, paid for the amount of produce he picked, rather than a fixed hourly rate.

Now, Canberra is launching a new visa designed to increase the number of foreigners working on Australian farms. In making partnership agreements for the visa, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has said the government will “be targeting countries that we already have long-standing bilateral agreements with – the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea”. Other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), including Indonesia, are also likely to be on the shortlist.

The Australian Agriculture visa seeks to provide a long-term solution to labour shortages reported by the farming sector, which accounts for around 3 per cent of Australia’s GDP.

The new agriculture visa will allow migrant farm labourers to work in Australia for three years, with a requirement to return to their home country for three months of every year. Unlike the Working Holiday Maker visa, if migrant workers agree to work in approved industries beyond the three years, they can also apply for permanent residency.