Agriculture visa: Timeline in doubt as citrus growers battle to secure workers

The newly-announced agriculture visa might not be up and running by the time promised, comments made during a Senate hearing reveal.

Promises of a new ag visa won’t help citrus growers just yet, who are about to enter their busiest harvest period.

Doubts have emerged whether the long-promised agriculture work visa will be up and running by the end of the year.

Federal Government officials have been unable to provide any insights into the timeline or design of the new visa, conceding “we have some work to do”.

It comes as citrus growers face their second season in a row of battling to secure enough harvest workers, as international border shutdowns continue.

Last month’s announcement of the agriculture-specific visa — which will be open to residents of the United Kingdom and 10 ASEAN countries — was a welcome surprise to farmers, who had been calling for the new visa for several years as a way to deal with ongoing labour shortages across the ag sector.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has vowed the visa would be in place by the end of the year.

However, Department of Home Affairs first assistant secretary for immigration programs, Michael Willard, told a Senate hearing last week that while the Government indicated it would “work towards an agriculture visa by the end of the year … there’s no further details to confirm at this stage”.

Asked if the visa would be operational by December, Mr Willard said it was “hard to give you a definitive response”.

“We have some work to do in regards to design and implementation,” he said, confirming no economic modelling into the visa had taken place so far.

Chair of the temporary migration committee, Labor senator Raff Ciccone, said the hearing made clear that government departments were “just as surprised as we were” at the ag visa’s announcement.

“The Coalition must provide more details on how this latest iteration of an agriculture visa will work,” Mr Ciccone said.

Senator Ciccone said with borders likely to be closed for the foreseeable future, it was difficult to see how the new visa could help fix the immediate labour shortages.

Citrus Australia chief executive Nathan Hancock said the visa was a positive step and urged the Government to start consulting with industry.

He said some growers were still finding it hard to get enough staff this year, with the busiest part of the season due within weeks.

“Some have been quite organised and joined the seasonal worker program, while others are always a couple people short, or significantly short, every day,” Mr Hancock said.

“Certainly in the Sunraysia and Riverina there are some very short of harvest labour, and in the Central Burnett it’s been much more difficult.”