Australia’s Second Backpacker Year Is Now a Lottery

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced a migration package at the National Press Club on 17 September, and the piece that matters most to travellers is the Working Holiday Maker programme. Second and third year visas, subclasses 417 and 462, will no longer be granted to everyone who meets the criteria. They will be allocated by ballot. Second-year places are capped at 45,000, down from around 57,000, and third-year places fall to 5,000, down from roughly 31,000. The regional work requirement that has always underpinned the extensions stays in place on top of the ballot.

The third-year cut is the severe one. Going from about 31,000 places to 5,000 is a reduction of roughly six in seven, which turns a visa extension that a determined backpacker could essentially plan on into something closer to a raffle ticket. The second-year reduction is milder in percentage terms but still binding, because demand has consistently exceeded the new cap. Applicants from the United Kingdom, from Pacific nations, and people undertaking a PhD are exempt from the ballot arrangements, which softens the effect considerably for one of the largest source markets.

A second change runs alongside it. The ‘No Further Stay’ condition, which prevents a visa holder from applying for most other visas while they are in Australia, is being expanded across Visitor visas. In practice that closes the informal pathway by which someone arrives on a tourist visa, finds work or study they like, and converts onshore. Anyone planning to visit Australia and then decide what happens next should assume that option is narrowing, and should sort out the visa they actually want before departure rather than after arrival.

The important caveat is timing. The measures are being rolled out gradually, several require legislation before they take effect, and the operational detail of how the ballot will work, when it opens and what it costs to enter had not been published when the announcement was made. If you are currently on a first-year working holiday visa and counting on a second, the sensible move is to complete the regional work requirement as early as you can and to watch the Home Affairs site for the ballot rules rather than relying on secondhand summaries.

Sources: ABC News, Australian Hotelier