The Working Holiday Maker (WHM) Program is a vital migration program for Australia.
In recent years the program has attracted more than 200,000 young tourists annually from 44 different countries to travel and work in Australia. Australia remains the number one destination for working holiday makers globally.
For 45 years the WHM program has enabled people to gain a deeper understanding and a more diverse experience of our country and its culture. The program also contributes to our international reputation by building advocates for Australia around the world.
In exchange, the program provides similar opportunities for Australians to travel the world and bring their experiences and knowledge back to this country. This report makes a detailed case for the WHM program.
WHMs play a critical role in filling skills shortages across Australia, particularly in our horticultural and agricultural industries, which continue to face the challenge of attracting Australians to fill these jobs. WHMs are uniquely suited to the seasonal nature of these jobs because they are a flexible, short term workforce with a desire to travel and experience work in our iconic farming regions which often struggle with labour shortages.
The program is also vital to our tourism industry contributing $3.1 billion annually to Australia’s economy and creating tourism jobs all over Australia, particularly in regional areas.
In 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic preventing the global movement of people, Australians have recognised just how valuable the WHM program is.
In September, the Committee produced an Interim Report dealing with some of the challenges that had arisen from the pandemic induced border closures. The Committee heard significant evidence about the urgent need to address the substantial labour shortages Australia’s agricultural and horticultural industry is facing this harvest season. The Committee’s recommendations addressed these shortages, focusing on ways to enable and incentivise Australians, WHMs and other visa holders remaining in Australia to head to the regions to pick fruit.
The Government subsequently made announcements picking up many of the recommendations put forward in the Interim Report with the goal of making sure as much labour as possible is directed to places where there is a critical need. The Government’s measures incentivise Australians and visa holders to fill workforce gaps the pandemic has created.
This report builds on the findings of the interim report and calls for more to be done to promote the opportunities available right now in regional and remote Australia.
This report also looks to the future. While the interim report dealt with changes to the program to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic this report focuses on longer term changes to the visa program and other technical matters such as the need to implement the Report of the Migrant Worker Taskforce and to incentivise a broader range of visa holders to undertake agricultural and horticultural work at this critical time.
On behalf of the committee I would like to thank all those who made submissions and gave evidence to this inquiry.
I commend the report to the Parliament.
Mr Julian Leeser MP
Chair