REGIONAL FARM WORKERS SENT TO THE BACK OF THE VISA QUEUE

The Federal Government has taken regional Australia off the skilled visa priority list and the farm workers our dairies and orchards have been waiting months for have just been sent to the back of the queue.

Until last month, a worker sponsored into a regional job went to the front of that queue. On 25 July, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's new processing direction scrapped the rule. Defence and law enforcement applications now go first, followed by construction, healthcare and teaching applicants who are already in the country, while being sponsored into a regional job no longer counts for anything at all. A worker a farmer has already signed up overseas can now wait up to twelve months for an answer.

Dairy farmers have spent up to $12,000 each finding, assessing and sponsoring workers because those skills cannot be found locally, and some of those workers had already been waiting six months when the rules changed underneath them. Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett says the government changed the queue after farmers had already paid to get into it and his industry was never consulted before it happened. On top of that, Work and Holiday visa applications from 24 countries have been paused while backpackers fill almost half the jobs in horticulture.

Cows do not read processing directions. Milking happens twice a day whether the visa comes through or not and harvest starts when the fruit is ripe, so every delayed worker means a farming family here in the Riverina working double shifts to cover a job they already paid to fill.

Regional jobs belong back at the front of the visa queue and I will be telling the Minister exactly that. If your farm is waiting on a worker stuck at the back of this pile, tell me below and share this with anyone who thinks food turns up on the shelf by itself.