That ICPA (Aust) requests the relevant minister instigate changes to the Working Holiday visa (subclass 417), of the Working Holiday Maker Program (WHM), to include as eligible employment, the positions of governess/nanny/au pair for Working Holiday visa holders intending to complete the required 88 days of work within the specified industry of ‘Plant and Animal Cultivation in Regional Australia’.
There is a constant skills shortage when it comes to experienced workers in agriculture. The broadening of eligible work positions within the visa regulations, may not mean that qualifying workers on visas would directly engage in the cultivation of plant and animals in regional Australia. The direct impact however, would be that already competent agricultural workers could return to the workforce, which would still achieve the desired aim of an increase in skilled workers actively engaged in agriculture.
As it currently stands, the WHM program declares the position of a nanny on a farm, to be an ineligible employment option when seeking to increase the time on Working Holiday visas. By revising the Working Holiday visa regulations, it would allow skilled and experienced members of a farm workforce, undertaking duties at home, such as childcare and the home tutoring of distance education children, to return to every day agricultural work. This would be due to these childcare/education positions on rural properties being effectively filled by visa holders.
Due to the restrictive job criteria of the WHM program, many capable applicants are not applying for childcare or education related positions in rural areas when needing employment counting towards extensions to their visas.
It is expected that the inclusion of these suggested new employment positions would result in the 88 workdays undertaken as a governess/nanny or au pair, also counting towards qualifying workdays for second or third year visa extension applications.
