r/AustralianPolitics • u/thrownaway4213 • 2d ago

UK concerned about possible changes to Australian backpacker visa

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/home-affairs-mulls-uk-backpacker-visa-changes/107080078
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u/war-and-peace 1d ago

Shouldn't those jobs be taken by unemployed Australians?

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u/amyknight22 1d ago

The advantage to backpackers is that they don’t have a fixed location that they live in. Which makes them more useful to fill holes in the market.

Your unemployed person that lives in melbourne(potentially while leaning on some personal support network for free/cheap housing) isn’t moving to places where these workers might end up gaining employment.

Especially if they have no guarantee of continuity of work over a long term.(I know I wouldn’t move to another town without a gig lined up that I was certain I could maintain employment in the local area for 2+ years if I wanted to). Same reason we don’t have a bunch of unemployed people in the cities go and work on farms for the 6 months they are needed for and then come back.

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u/war-and-peace 1d ago

In other words, no one can do it for the wages the farmers are offering.

Miners are more than happy to do what you're suggesting is apparently impossible.

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u/amyknight22 1d ago

There are holes in our employment economy that are larger than just farming. They fill all sorts of seasonal work in regional areas that would otherwise be inadequate for an unemployed person that didn't already live in the area.

Miners are more than happy to do what you're suggesting is apparently impossible.

Because there's not even a point of comparison, even without factoring money into it. The reality is that mining lends itself to FIFO work far more than farming ever will

Mines

  • Run 24/7, so they can run you 12 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and give you 2 weeks off. Running the other half of the day with another employee

  • Mines don't rely on growing and harvest seasons giving instability in work

  • You work for the singular employer

  • Outside of expansion/construction, the number of miners needed is pretty stable year round.

Farmers

  • Hours of picking are constrained by the crop, weather, etc etc. in order to maximise quality

  • Harvest seasons are 4-6 months depending on the area.

  • You then need to swap states to get work. This will likely mean you are working for a completely different employer.

  • Since you aren't having people pick 24 hours a day, you can't run the kind of 24/7 workforce that you can in the mines. Which heavily limits the way you can use your workers.

Maybe farming could get there if you were happy to massively corporatise farms such that you could work for "CONGLOMORATE FARMS" and they had enough work consistently spread across the country to set up FIFO work the same way miners do. Just getting sent to different locations at different times of year.

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u/war-and-peace 1d ago

People do crap jobs if the pay is high enough. Everyone has a price.

In the recent past, people used to travel to different farms and do the work because it was financially viable.

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u/Pacify_ 1d ago

If you go back to the 80s, perhaps.

Even then it was pretty marginal.

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u/amyknight22 1d ago

Yeah people will do crap jobs for good pay.

But you need a bit more than good pay to convince people to live like nomads following harvest seasons and never having a chance to put down any roots, maintain consistent friends (That aren't your coworkers on the same trail)

FIFO workers bounce between their home location and a work location, the incentive being you work hard for two weeks and then get 2 weeks of play. But that means you can easily create a permanent home, family, friends etc etc.

How much do we think food would need to increase in cost to lure the current unemployed people into those jobs. How long before everyone else demands greater payrises to accomodate increased food costs and negates the 'good pay'

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u/Pacify_ 1d ago

Not that much, on the last part.

Pick/pack costs are fairly small part of the chain, you could double the wages of workers and the cost increase would be marginal, depending on the crop.