Workforce resilience in focus as backpacker visa reforms loom

Recent discussions around disaster recovery funding have highlighted the importance of resilience across Queensland agriculture. While resilience is often discussed in the context of drought, flooding and other natural disasters, it also extends to workforce planning and ensuring businesses can access the labour needed to respond to seasonal demand and maintain operations.

Australia’s Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program has long been an important source of seasonal labour for the Australian agriculture sector.

For many producers, the value of the WHM program extends beyond simply filling vacancies during peak periods. Returning WHM workers can bring valuable experience, familiarity with agricultural work and an understanding of a business’s day-to-day operations. However, the proposed changes to access the second and third WHM visas could make this source of labour less predictable.

For producers already planning around seasonal work, this raises a practical question: what happens if access to experienced and returning seasonal workers becomes less certain?

What has been proposed?

On 17 September 2026, Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration and Citizenship, announced changes to Australia’s migration system that would affect access to second and third-year WHM visas.

Under the proposed arrangements, eligible WHM workers seeking a second or third year visa would no longer progress solely based on satisfying the relevant requirements. Instead, access would be subject to a ballot, with 45,000 second-year places and 5,000 third-year places proposed, compared to 57,000 and 31,000 in 2025, respectively.

This represents a potentially significant change for industries that rely on WHM workers, and the practical details will matter. The Federal Government has not yet published the full mechanics of the proposed second and third-year ballot arrangements, including how selection will occur and how the new arrangements will interact with existing specified-work requirements.

Until further details are published, producers should therefore be cautious about assuming precisely how the proposed arrangements will affect individual workers or upcoming seasons. Much like disaster preparedness, workforce planning often requires businesses to make decisions before uncertainty becomes reality. While the final form of the reforms remains unclear, the announcement provides an opportunity for producers to assess how reliant their operations are on returning seasonal labour and whether alternative workforce arrangements may be required.

What is notable is that the proposed changes could impact the availability of seasonal labour. For some producers, that may mean reviewing workforce arrangements and considering alternative labour sources to reduce the risk of workforce shortages creating operational, compliance or safety challenges.

Why experienced workers matter

WHM workers can provide agriculture with a flexible workforce able to move between businesses and regions in response to seasonal demand.

Consequently, experienced WHM workers can be particularly valuable, especially where returning workers may already understand the crop, machinery, and workplace processes and expectations, thereby reducing the time and resources required for onboarding.

For producers, the proposed reforms therefore raise an important workforce planning question: how resilient is the business if experienced seasonal workers are unable to return?

Planning ahead

With the key risk to producers being the potential loss of experienced WHM workers returning for future seasons, now is a good time for producers to review their workforce needs and consider practical steps to build workforce resilience.

This may include commencing recruitment earlier, diversifying workforce sources, and exploring complementary labour options, including local recruitment, employing casual employees directly, engaging labour hire or considering the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.

More broadly, producers should review their recruitment and workforce management practices to ensure they address common compliance risks, including Award compliance, time and wage record keeping, payroll practices and employment contracts. Producers should also ensure appropriate systems are in place to manage workforce safety, including worker induction and training, fatigue management and managing physical and psychosocial safety risks.  

While the detail and timing of the WHM changes are still being settled, the announcement provides a timely reminder for producers to take stock of their workforce needs, workforce arrangements and compliance obligations before seasonal labour becomes urgent.

Thea Price is a Workplace Partner at Sparke Helmore and can assist producers to review workforce arrangements, manage employment law risks and prepare for changes affecting the availability of seasonal labour.