Australia slows ‘backpacker’ visa process as migration cuts eyed

AUSTRALIA is slowing the issuance of new “working holiday” visas popular with backpackers as the government looks at policies to cut migration to the country. 

“They are still being processed, but they are being processed more slowly than they were previously,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Sunday (Aug 16). The visas allow people to come to Australia to work and travel for a set period of time, and are popular with European and Japanese citizens.

Applications for people from 24 nations with an annual cap are “paused” for the current financial year, which began in July, according to the department’s website. Processing times for people from nations with no cap have started to get longer since July, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The Minister had been planning to announce new migration curbs at a speech earlier this month, but that was cancelled at the last minute and the new policy is currently “going through a cabinet process,” Burke said on Sunday, declining to say when the new policy would be announced. 

Burke had been planning to unveil sweeping cuts to migration, the national broadcaster ABC reported earlier this month, including tougher rules for family visas, a cap on the number of people on backpacking visas, and restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers to work.

The government has said that it wants to reduce the number of people permanently moving to Australia, but the final numbers of immigrants has repeatedly exceeded their projections.

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The main opposition parties and the far right One Nation party have attacked the government over the number of migrants, with both promising to substantially reduce migration if they win government. BLOOMBERG