Winemakers against plan to overhaul working holiday visas

Hunter Valley winemakers have backed calls to fight a union proposal to overhaul working holiday visas. The Daily Telegraph can reveal some wineries rely on backpackers for more than half of their workforce.

• Labor’s plan to change working visas

Hunter Valley winemakers have backed calls to fight a union proposal to overhaul working holiday visas.

As the state’s premier wine region prepares to begin picking in coming weeks, The Daily Telegraph can reveal some wineries rely on backpackers for more than half of their workforce.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions is pressuring Labor scrap the second year of the visa which provided the agriculture industry with more than 32,000 workers last year.

Hunter Valley wineries have backed calls to fight a union proposal to overhaul working holiday visas. Picture: Troy Snook

The powerful union also called for the work rights in the first year to be tightened.

Braymore Wines manager Ken Bray warned if there was a significant drop in the backpacker workforce wineries would be forced to resort to machines to pick grapes rather than hand picking.

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“Some vines like semillon don’t pick as well using machines and other vines, particularly old ones, just won’t stand up to it,” he said.

Mr Bray said about 50 per cent to 60 per cent of Braymore’s picking workforce was made up of foreigners on working holiday visas.

He said despite high unemployment rates in the area wineries struggled to fill jobs with local workers — particularly those who were reliable.

Wineries could be forced to resort to machines to pick grapes rather than hand picking.

“We like to employ students who are genuine about wanting extra work,” he said.

Figures provided by the National Farmers Federation show up to 85 per cent of Australia’s harvest workforce were on a working holiday visa.

Year round, about one in four people working in agriculture were backpackers.

NFF workplace relations general manager Ben Rogers said Australian workers “simply don’t want, in sufficient volumes, to do farm work”.