Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (17:17): 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!

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