I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges:

(a) the vital and longstanding contribution of the agriculture sector to Australia's economy, food security and regional communities; and

(b) the existing and significant workforce shortages already facing the sector;

(2) notes that:

(a) the Government has let migration get too high, but farmers and the agriculture workforce should not be made to carry the burden of fixing it;

(b) Ministerial Direction 119 has, for the first time, placed agricultural skilled visas at the bottom of the visa priority list;

(c) processing of Working Holiday Maker visas has been slowed with applications from 24 countries currently paused;

(d) these changes were made without consultation with the agriculture sector; and

(e) the agriculture sector is already facing rising input costs, biosecurity risks and increasing regulatory burden; and

(3) urges the Government to:

(a) immediately reverse the changes made under Ministerial Direction 119 as they apply to agricultural visas;

(b) resume normal processing of Working Holiday Maker visa applications for all affected countries; and

(c) guarantee that agricultural workforce visas will be prioritised in any future migration policy changes.

Farmers and regional small business owners are paying the price for Labor's incompetence when it comes to migration policy. On this side of the chamber we acknowledge the vital and longstanding contribution of the agriculture sector to Australia's economy, to our food security and to regional communities. We also recognise the existing and significant workforce shortages already facing this vital sector. But Labor is just making it worse for Australian farmers.

The reason we're moving this motion is that our farmers are now carrying the cost for the migration failures of the Albanese government and its ministers. There are two changes which are hitting the agriculture sector at once which will limit farmers' access to the workforce they need right before the harvest. The immigration minister issued ministerial direction 119, effective on 25 July this year, which reordered the skilled visa queue. This introduced five priority tiers, with agriculture not among the nominated priority occupations. Subclass 482 visas, including the industry labour agreements such as the dairy industry labour agreement, are now the bottom two of five tiers. This is the first time they've been ranked this way, and this applies retrospectively, meaning applications already lodged and waiting get reshuffled.

Separately to this action, working holiday-maker visa processing has been slowed down, with applications from 24 countries currently paused. In Minister Burke's own words, applications are 'being processed more slowly than previously', with no further explanation given. That's the important point. There was no consultation with the agriculture sector before either of these changes. Farmers have been blindsided from an out-of-touch Labor government that simply doesn't understand agriculture and simply doesn't understand the impact of the decisions they've made. These changes are creating health and safety risks for our farmers and for the workers who are on farm who are juggling unsustainable workloads because they won't have access to the workforce they are expecting to arrive. And when the additional workforce doesn't arrive on farm, the slack is going to be picked up by everyone already there.

Canberra bureaucrats and the ministers in this Labor government simply don't understand that harvest doesn't wait for a bureaucrat to process a visa form. On this side of the chamber we do understand, because we've been approached by our farming lobby groups and individual farmers who are saying to us that the impact of these decisions won't just be on farm. It will flow on through the whole supply chain and will end up resulting in higher prices on supermarket shelves. This motion asks the government to reverse the changes, to resume the normal working holiday-maker processing and to guarantee agricultural workforce visas are prioritised in any future migration policy. Because our farmers feed the country, and they deserve to be supported by decisions made in this place.

There is plenty of support for the coalition's views on this matter. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO, Andrew McKellar, said:

Go-slows in visa processing is terrible policy, unannounced delays put all the uncertainty on business compounding stress and making planning impossible.

The National Farmers' Federation President, Hamish McIntyre, said:

Farmers are telling us workers they expected to arrive have not arrived, crops still need to be harvested, cows still need to be milked and the workload is being pushed onto fewer people.

…   …   …

If farms cannot access workers at the right time, the consequences do not stop at the farm gate. They flow through local businesses, regional economies, supply chains and ultimately all Australians at the checkout.

The CEO of the National Farmers' Federation, Mike Guerin, said:

By restricting access to this workforce, the consequences don't stop at the farm gate. They are already being felt in regional communities and supply chains and before long, they will be felt at the checkout.

… These changes are also creating health and safety risks for farmers and workers who are struggling with unsustainable workloads.

Finally, the Victorian Farmers Federation President, Ryan Milgate, said:

This isn't a speculative issue. We're already hearing real world stories and concerns of workers and farmers trapped in limbo.

Our farmers are very good at managing risk. They manage the risk of seasonal conditions. They're managing the risks now of fuel and fertiliser prices. It's very hard to manage the risk of a government making stupid, ill-informed decisions which mean they can't access the workforce they need to provide the food, fibre and security our country demands. The agricultural sector is dealing with this uncertainty every day, and the minister and the Prime Minister are simply paying no attention to the urgency of the issue. The last thing that our farmers need in these difficult times is more government incompetence when it comes to managing their workforce needs.

Is the motion seconded?

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Like the member for Gippsland, I, too, celebrate our agricultural sector. I, too, grew up in the regions, particularly in Western Australia's oldest inland town of York. When we talk about agriculture, we should talk about outcomes. I know the members opposite like to run the line that Labor isn't a friend of the regions, but members on this side of the chamber represent regional Australia too, and, in agriculture, we have runs on the board.

Since the election of the Albanese Labor government in 2022, Australian agriculture has gone from facing major trade barriers and growing biosecurity threats to recording some of the strongest export performances in our history. The Albanese Labor government has backed Australian farmers with practical action. Those opposite may have already forgotten, but let's remind them of the impact of their actions while they had their decade in government and what it resulted in for farmers across the country. The impact of former prime minister Scott Morrison's megaphone diplomacy cost Australian farmers. Just to give some examples, wine tariffs went up 218 per cent. It cost Australian farmers about $1.2 billion a year. Barley, grown particularly in Western Australia, incurred an 80 per cent tariff under the national coalition government. It cost us about $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year. Our beef sector suffered severe restrictions, along with our timber, cotton and coal. Our rock lobsters that were worth $750 million a year to our fisheries sector in Western Australia—gone.

The impact for Western Australia and national farmers was around $20 billion as a consequence of the Nationals and Liberals. Now, thankfully—mainly thanks, in fact, to the efforts of Minister Farrell—we've restored that access to our largest trading partner in China. So our barley, wine, beef, cotton producers, hay, timber and seafood have all now benefited from Labor being in government and doing sensible negotiations with our partners overseas.

Labor's also delivered the Australia-India Economic Cooperation Trade agreement. We brought the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement into force as well, and we've concluded the UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which particularly opens up a significant market for sheepmeat. Then there's the Australia—European Union Free Trade Agreement, which Labor has managed to conclude the negotiations on. Just as recently as last week, we had the Nationals leader prepared to sink this $10 billion free trade deal with the EU.

Just think about the cost of this to farmers. This is duty free access for 97.8 per cent of the current value of all our exports from day one. This would be a cost if we have the Nationals and Liberals return to government. Seafood would see tariffs, currently sitting around 26 per cent, back on again. Under the EU trade agreement, it would be free. Our cereals and grain growers are currently getting tariffs of up to $166 a tonne. All of this will be gone and, under Liberals and Nationals, back on again. Sugar, beef, sheepmeat, honey, olive oil, dairy, rice, wine, horticulture, all of them are benefiting from an agreement that is going to be around $10 billion a year, an agreement that the coalition are prepared to walk away from. That is not responsible, and it certainly sends extremely worrying signals to the market both here domestically and to our partners in the EU. This is the difference between Labor and the Nationals and Liberals: they are prepared to cost our farmers—hugely, significantly, literally—at the farm gate in order to make a political point.

Australia has maintained record and near-record agricultural export performances, and we want to see those opportunities continue to grow because that then translates to more opportunities, not just in the production but for jobs as well.

In biosecurity, Labor introduced the National Biosecurity Strategy, a long-term funding model to ensure our system remains sustainable into the future. Why did we have to do that? Because the opposition, the Nationals and the Liberals—to coin a phrase made by one of the people from the department—had turned the finance into 'custard'. On coming into office, Labor had to do a $127 million bailout because the department was literally looking to become unviable, potentially insolvent, after a decade of mismanagement. This matters to farmers. This is biosecurity. Australia needs to uphold that, and the Nationals and Liberals are prepared to run that to the ground.

I proudly rise to second the motion from my colleague the member for Gippsland and stand for my farmers in Mallee, who have responsibly been getting ready for their broadacre harvest. We are literally on the cusp of that harvest right now. I am horrified that this Albanese Labor government has so little clue about agriculture that we have to demand action on working holiday visas for our processing. Just before this sitting fortnight, I travelled through Dimboola, Nhill, Kaniva and Rainbow in Mallee. The crops are looking magnificent—green and gold everywhere. Everywhere I went, however, conversations about the imminent harvest quickly turned to working holiday-maker 417 visas and the processing times that, on the department's own website, say should be about a day and they were still waiting 40 days later.

Farmers ran the gauntlet of timing the weather, high input costs yet, with the finish line in sight, they did not expect to be shirtfronted by the most insidious pest in culture—Canberra bureaucracy. I already have a dozen cases of delayed working holiday-maker visas, plus contractors like Matthew Bourke, president of Australian Custom Harvesters, who says, 'We bring back highly skilled workers from Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland because they have experience operating multimillion-dollar agricultural machinery.' He also warned, 'During harvest, our operation can harvest around $300,000 a day, so we cannot simply replace an experienced operator at the last minute.' Contractors and farmers plan ahead and, might I add, relied upon the department's representation on how quickly they turn around visa applications, because that's the way it's always been done.

Today, the National Farmers' Federation has called on the government to urgently restore timely working holiday-maker visa processing. Quite rightly, they raise the serious health and safety risk of farmers, who already work longer hours due to workforce gaps, having to work even longer because Labor has prevented workers coming in to help with harvest. As we debate a digital duty of care in this place, what about Labor's duty of care to our farmers? What about farm safety? What about liability? What liability will the Commonwealth have if it causes harm because workers don't arrive in time?

A third of the grains harvest workforce are backpackers. At the peak of the horticultural harvest, almost half the workers are backpackers. It's about a quarter in the red meat and cotton industries. Nick Paterson from Excel Farms said:

When applications lodged in early July are still unresolved as harvest approaches, it leaves businesses with very few options.

Minister Tony Burke has publicly confirmed that working holiday maker visas are 'being processed more slowly than they were previously'. A warning would have been great. The government has also paused applications from 24 countries in the subclass 462 Work and Holiday program. I am largely talking about the harvesting contractors that come through the separate subclass 417 Working Holiday program from, as I said before, countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. When I raised these concerns publicly, Minister Burke told the Stawell Times:

… when we started to improve worker protections on PALM—

that is the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme—

… not overwhelmingly, but some of the worst operators said, 'Well, if we've got to have better standards for PALM workers, we'll just switch to backpackers.' And that's not the way this system's meant to work.

What on earth does he mean? Is the minister referring to the 24 countries he paused under 462 or 417? The 417 has operated for over 50 years in various forms as bilateral exchanges of young people between countries like Australia and the others I've mentioned. I fear that Labor is playing a dangerous game of chicken with harvest, hoping we in the coalition will blink on broader negotiations on migration. Don't you dare use farmers' need for harvest workers as a bargaining chip!

I'm very happy to speak on this private member's bill and, particularly, to speak to the gross hypocrisy of it. This comes from an opposition that's busily talking about slashing immigration numbers in their fight against One Nation. In a race to the bottom, they are squabbling over immigration numbers and encouraging the community to buy into their divisive rhetoric without any reflection whatsoever on the impact that their policies would have on the Australian economy and on the standard of living of Australians. So I'm actually really pleased to find that the member for Gippsland has recognised that their rhetoric of slashing migration numbers would have real-life impacts on current industry, let alone future productivity or growth—although he seems to have only managed to recognise this in relation to one industry important to his own electorate, not to all the other industries across Australia.

I sit on the migration committee and we're currently undertaking an inquiry into skilled migration. We've heard from diverse industry sectors from across the country: city, rural and regional. So, yes, we've heard from the agricultural sector how important overseas workers are—through PALM, through backpackers or working holiday makers and also through permanent migrants. But we've also heard from the hospitality and tourism sectors. We've heard from the education sector about the importance of being able to get teachers and lecturers from overseas—but also the importance of overseas students. Overseas students are an important part of the financial sustainability of the university sector, but they're also an important strategy for soft diplomacy. Many of those educated in Australia go on to be heads of government and heads of industry in their home countries when they return home, and their connections to Australia are important.

We've also heard from the housing and construction sector how desperate they are for skilled labour and, indeed, semi-skilled labour. Infrastructure Australia estimated in 2025 that we were short about 141,000 workers, which will grow to 300,000 by 2027. In my home state of South Australia, we have many, many large projects underway: the North-South Corridor, the Flinders Medical Centre extension, a new women and children's hospital, the Northern Water Project and the defence industry, including AUKUS—not to mention our need to build more houses and associated infrastructure. The AUKUS project is estimated to need 27,000 engineers and, of course, due to security reasons, these people need to be Australians, which drains all the other industries of these workers. Local businesses tell me they are losing welders to the submarine corps already and are struggling to replace them. We heard from the health, disability and aged-care sectors about the importance of skilled migration to the clinical and carer workforce. Around 40 per cent of nurses currently working in Australia come from overseas. Some of them came as international students and then got snapped up by a hungry health or aged-care sector desperate for more skilled staff to provide services for our growing ageing population. Others were recruited as already-qualified skilled migrants. Having worked in the health sector, I can assure you that the health sector would not work without skilled migrants. And all these sectors would be very happy to employ Australians, but we have low unemployment.

It won't surprise you to know that if you want skilled migrants to come and contribute to our country, our community and our economy, they are going to want to be part of that community, and they're going to want to bring their families. Fifty-one per cent of us are migrants or have at least one parent who is a migrant. I myself am a migrant. My father was a skilled migrant as part of the '10-pound Pom' scheme. We came out as three generations. We settled down. My brother and my cousins were born here. And I'd like to think we have contributed positively to this country. We've all worked and brought up our families here.

So while those opposites squabble over numbers with no regard to the economy and mislead on what the norm is or try to redefine it, we've heard today from the Business Council of Australia on the latest version of One Nation's immigration cuts, saying it would have a significant detrimental effect on our economic growth and on delivering prosperity for Australians and noting that with our ageing population we need more workers. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said they do not support arbitrary cuts. Farmers, miners and business leaders have warned that sharp reductions would worsen persistent workforce shortages.

So the summary is: if you want to destroy the economy, if you want to reduce GDP, if you want to reduce services available to Australians and if you want to reduce their quality of life then these sorts of slash-and-burn cuts in migration will achieve all of that. I'm really pleased that the member for Gippsland is starting to work this out.

It's a pleasure to support my friend, colleague and neighbour as part of the great Gippsland region in speaking to this motion regarding the agriculture sector. The electorate of Monash is part of the Gippsland region. Combined, we are proud to produce 23 per cent of the nation's milk output, 26 per cent of Victoria's beef production and a large chunk of Melbourne's water, and you can thank us very much for still contributing the majority of Victoria's baseload electricity as well.

I'm passionate about agriculture. I worked as a farmhand before studying my masters of agribusiness at Melbourne uni and dedicating a big chunk of my working life to advocating for farmers and agribusinesses in the Gippsland region as part of my role at the Committee for Gippsland. I'm really proud to represent a number of those iconic national brands like Burra Foods, Saputo, Radfords meats, Gippsland Jersey and Durkin Produce, which takes our spuds from Thorpdale to all over the country, as well as Fankhauser Apples in Drouin; they're a multigenerational farming business that have been growing apples in Australia for over 100 years. We've got dairy farmers in Berrys Creek and farmers in Mirboo North, Lance Creek and Ellinbank.

Food security is national security, and I'm very proud to represent a region that grows, makes and manufactures things that the rest of Australia relies on every day of the week. These enterprises, along with dozens of other premium growers in our region, produce clean, green agricultural food that Australia is known for. We can't consume everything that we grow in Australia. About two-thirds of what we produce is exported to international markets, which are hungry and eager for our food and products.

But right now our agricultural sector is up against it, and it's up against it on a number of fronts. I heard the Business Council of Australia referred to. Well, they've also come out with some pretty stark warnings about our productivity, which has declined significantly even in the last couple of years. Productivity strikes at the heart of the ability of our farmers to get their products out of the ground, manufacture them, value-add to them and get them to market. So productivity is a really big challenge for many farming families right now, along with the price of electricity and also, in relation to this motion, the regulatory go-slow and unprecedented land grab that defies economic logic.

My friend and colleague the member for Gippsland has spoken to a number of the migration challenges that we've got right now contributing to persistent workforce shortages. Instead of supporting our farmers, the government handed down ministerial direction 119, which officially shunts agricultural skilled visas to the very bottom of the priority queue right when we need them the most. I don't want to see a situation where clean, green, high-value agricultural products are stuck stranded in the ground because there's not an availability of people to pick them or harvest them. That is a really big issue.

To make matters worse, the government has quietly turned off the tap for seasonal workers. The Department of Home Affairs has abruptly paused the working holiday-maker visa applications for 24 countries, including major partners like Argentina and Brazil. I got to see this firsthand when visiting a strawberry farm in Neerim North in West Gippsland recently. The farmers there, Phil and Bridie, had been dairy farmers and recently, in the last season or two, switched over to growing strawberries. It was wonderful to see the really high-value produce coming out of the ground at their farm, but they talked me through some of the worker shortages and challenges that they were up against. These visa programs are incredibly important to farming families like Phil and Bridie's, along with many other agribusinesses right across the Monash electorate.

The National Farmers' Federation has repeatedly warned that, if we do not secure these workforces, crops will rot in the ground and costs will spike at the check-out. We are not just dealing with affordability and reliability issues for farming families. We are also having to have regard in this place for families really doing it tough right now, right across Australia, who ultimately pay the price at the check-out. So I'm very pleased to support this motion by my friend and colleague the member for Gippsland. He is passionate about backing local farmers, I'm passionate about backing farmers and so is the coalition.

There is no argument from me about the importance of agriculture, and there's no argument from anyone on this side either. Our farmers feed our country, support thousands of jobs and keep regional towns going. They produce some of the world's best food and best fibre. In the Hunter, agriculture is part of who we are. From cattle and dairy to vineyards, poultry and thoroughbreds, we know its value.

We also know the sector faces real workforce shortages, but this motion is not a serious plan to fix that. It's another political stunt from those opposite that's all over the place on migration. None of them are left here. They've all left. This is so important, but they've all left. So, depending on who you are and when you ask, you'll get a different answer.

Before the election, the coalition ruled out cuts to working holiday-makers. Then Senator Bragg ruled them back in at the National Press Club. Then the coalition ruled them out again. They called for cuts to student visas. Then they said student visas could remain unchanged. Then they said they'd prioritise the skills Australia needs while wanting to bring back the golden ticket for wealthy investors. They ruled out cuts to family visas. Then they said those cuts could come from family visas. Their plan is to use migration as a political weapon and chase votes from One Nation. That will not deliver a farm worker. It will not train an apprentice, it will not build a house and it will not put a nurse in a hospital.

If the coalition wants deep cuts to skilled migration, it needs to tell Australians exactly which workers they are going to cut out. Is it going to be the nurses? Is it going to be the doctors? Is it going to be the construction workers or the aged-care workers or—you know what? It's going to be the skilled agricultural workers they suddenly came to care about.

When Labor came to government, net overseas migration was soaring. We inherited a broken system, a massive visa backlog and growing numbers of people stuck on bridging visas. Temporary migrants were being left permanently temporary, with no proper pathway to stay and no proper pathway to leave. Those opposite deregulated the system, weakened worker protections and ripped funding straight out of TAFE and training. Net overseas migration has fallen by 45 per cent from its post-pandemic peak. We've tightened student visas, shut down dodgy providers and closed loopholes that allowed people to jump from one visa to another.

We're building a migration system that delivers the skills Australia needs while cracking down on exploitation and rorts. We established the Agricultural Workforce Working Group and the agriculture labour taskforce. We're bringing farmers, employers, unions and government together to find practical ways to attract, train, protect and retain workers.

Since January 2023, fee-free TAFE has delivered more than 28,000 enrolments in agriculture related courses. That's what long-term workforce plans look like. That means more training for Aussies, for good jobs, while making sure employers can access overseas workers when they genuinely need them. We're also strengthening the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme. The number of PALM scheme workers has grown, from around 8,000 in March 2020 to more than 32,600 by the end of June 2026. Almost 30,000 of those workers are supporting the agriculture and meat processing areas. That's real workers on the ground supporting real Australian businesses.

Compare that to the Nationals' failed agriculture visa. They had an ag visa, then they didn't, and then they had one again. After all the announcements and political carry-on, it didn't deliver a single worker to an Australian farmer while they were in government. We've committed more than $5 million since 2024 to support a skilled and safe agricultural workforce. That includes funding for farm safety, AgCAREERSTART, the AgConnections pilot and the Fair Farms training and certification program. We've also invested $85 million to help migrants get their overseas skills recognised faster. More than 20,000 migrants have already been made available to work in construction trades through faster skills assessment.

This government will continue to keep working with the agriculture sector on workforce pressures. We'll keep strengthening PALM. We'll keep investing in TAFE, apprentices and skills. We'll also keep running a responsible migration system with the national interest at heart. They don't deserve lectures from a coalition that created a mess, that ignored workforce shortages for nine years and still can't agree on its own migration policy. That's why I will not be supporting this political stunt.

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.