Speakers: Hon Matthew Canavan, Matt Lowe, Unknown Speaker

Transcript

Hon Matthew Canavan

those for notice then. Uh sorry, I'm just trying to find my place here for the last section. Although before I find those, I might just quickly ask, have you been involved at all with the agricultural industry and trying to get um working holiday maker visas approved? There's been a lot of complaints from industry in recent months. This is separate from the ballots and caps coming in but uh just a delay in getting things approved. Uh has there been any role from the department in helping facilitate access for farmers?

Matt Lowe

Principally uh I guess we the the role that we've played as we sort of previously u mentioned in this committee today has been around um advising home affairs of particular pressures um that are emerging in the sector as a consequence of um of those changes that have been introduced in relation to the working holiday maker visa program. So

Hon Matthew Canavan

>> so I'm not talking about the change that were announced. It had previously been announced that effectively the government was on a go slow. They were delaying um approvals of working holiday maker visas nationally to hit net overseas migration target. But have you been I've received a lot of complaints this is threatening harvests and uh um plantation programs. Have you been involved at all in seeking to prioritize

Matt Lowe

sought to do is um to ensure that those areas of acute need or companies with acute need and um and considerable time pressure that we have advised home affairs of those of those particular circumstances um to ensure that they're able to take that into account with their processing decision- making.