Immigration Minister Tony Burke then announced a new policy two weeks ago with plans to permanently tighten visas for working holiday-makers, with processing times set to extend to about three months.
On Thursday, the NFF announced it was working with the Department of Home Affairs to establish a process for identifying workers whose visa applications may be considered for priority processing.
However the process was only for genuine, urgent cases where the worker had already applied for a working holiday maker visa; been identified for agricultural work on a specific farm; and their timely arrival was critical to business operations.
But the current backlog might still cause issues with labour for the harvest, with Wimmera farmers anxious that workers – some who return each year to work during harvest – will not arrive in time.
Banyena farmer David Schuckar told ACE Radio’s Country Today farmers he had spoken to had indicated visa wait times of between three and six weeks were common for visas that used to be approved within days.
Mr Schuckar said it was likely Victoria was going to have a great harvest – pending weather to finish off the season – so many farms were requiring extra workers compared to usual.
“Everyone’s coming to the realisation now that we need an extra staff member to run this machine longer into the night, or we’re definitely going to need the chaser bin operator,” he said.
Mr Schuckar said it was a challenge to recruit casual employees because the exact start times of harvest were unknown until closer to the date.
He said the workers who came from overseas were ‘young people passionate about ag’.
“They’ve been driving machinery for multiple years back home – five years plus usually – so straight away we’ve really got a small recruiting pool, because we really need these skilled staff on these machines to do our operations safely,” he said.
“They actually understand what we’re trying to achieve. It just makes everything a lot safer.
“We are doing big hours – we’re working at night, we’re working in the dark – there are a lot of challenges that come with it.”
Member for Mallee Anne Webster said she knew of more than 50 cases in her electorate where farmers were being inconvenienced by delayed visas and that number was growing daily.
“We, in The Nationals, told the government their go-slow approach to 417 working-holiday maker visas was economically damaging at harvest and unsafe for the farmers left to bring the crop in,” she said.
“Labor thought it was being clever with net overseas migration by fiddling about with processing timelines on visas for harvest workers.
“Minister Burke has decided to co-opt the National Farmers Federation and its member bodies into a process for which, as best I can tell, farming bodies will not be paid for the processing effort.
“I am told that come 3pm each working day, peak bodies will submit 417 visa applicants from their membership.”
The other challenge for harvest operations is the rising cost of diesel, with prices up to $2.97 a litre.
The Liberals and Nationals are calling on the State Government to immediately publish its plan for activating and distributing Victoria’s 10-million litre agricultural diesel reserve as farmers head into the harvest period.
The government announced the reserve in May, after fuel prices surged and supply was at risk, promising it would give Victorian farmers confidence that fuel would be available when they needed it most and help protect the state’s food security.
But Member for Lowan and shadow agriculture minister Emma Kealy said farmers deserved answers about fuel reserves before the headers started rolling.
“There is no food security without fuel security, you can’t harvest a crop without diesel,” she said.
“Labor bought 10-million litres of diesel and told farmers it would protect them at harvest, but where is the plan to actually get that fuel to farmers if they need it?”
Ms Kealy said the reserve could only be released if level four of the National Fuel Security Plan was activated, despite the government saying the fuel was secured specifically to protect Victorian agriculture.
“Farmers are already trying to work out whether they’ll have enough skilled workers to get their crops off, and now they’re facing uncertainty about fuel supply and rapidly rising diesel costs,” she said.
“Labor governments should be making it easier for farmers to produce our food, not putting more obstacles in their way.”
Ms Kealy called on Agriculture Minister Michaela Settle to publish the operational plan for the reserve, including where it was held, who would receive priority, how it would be distributed, how quickly it could reach farms and whether Victoria had any capacity to respond to serious regional shortages before a level four national emergency was declared.
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