Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) has welcomed the Australian Government’s decision to restore agriculture as a priority for skilled visa processing and renewed its call for the backlog of existing applications to be expedited.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke today announced that Ministerial Direction 119 would be updated to include agriculture among priority occupations, recognising the sector’s importance to regional Australia.
The change follows sustained advocacy from ADF and the broader agriculture sector after agricultural visa applicants were pushed to the lowest processing priority under Direction 119. Farmers had already invested heavily in workforce planning, recruitment, and visa sponsorship arrangements.
ADF President Ben Bennett said the decision was a positive step but warned that restoring agriculture to the priority list would mean little without action on the backlog of applications already in the system.
He also noted ADF has significant concerns about changes to the Working Holiday Maker visa program.
He said the Australian Government had accepted what dairy farmers had been saying – agriculture needs access to the right people, with the right skills, at the right time with timely visa processing when local workers cannot be found.
“We provided evidence from dairy farmers, highlighted the impact on regional communities and food security, and made the case that agriculture should not have been pushed to the back of the queue.
“This is a positive and welcome step for dairy farmers, who have been caught in uncertainty through no fault of their own, but there’s more to be done,” Mr Bennett said.
“Changing the priority list is only the first step. Questions remain about the backlog of agricultural visa applications that accumulated after Direction 119 came into effect.
“The backlog did not occur by accident. It was created as a direct consequence of Government policy and now needs to be addressed.
“We need clarity on when the revised processing arrangements will commence, whether existing applications will be automatically reprioritised, how applications will be handled and what processing timeframes farmers can expect.
“There are dairy farmers who have already been left in limbo for months while applications sit in queues. Restoring agriculture to the priority list must be accompanied by a plan to clear that backlog.”
He said proposed changes to the Working Holiday Maker program should mean processing speeds for many primary Working Holiday Maker applications will return to previous levels, but ADF had serious concerns around the introduction of ballots for second and third-year visas.
The second-year ballot will be capped at 45,000 places, compared with around 57,000 people qualifying last year. The third-year ballot will fall to just 5,000 places, compared with around 31,000 people in that group last year.
“That third-year reduction is enormous and should ring alarm bells across regional Australia,” Mr Bennett said.
“We hope the Australian Government will properly consult agriculture on how these ballots will work and what the consequences will be for regional workforce availability before these changes bite.”
Mr Bennett said ADF would continue working constructively with Minister Burke, Minister Collins and Home Affairs on implementation and prompt action to ensure workers can reach dairy farms as quickly as possible.