Working holiday makers in Australia: food security, climate change, and the backpacker tax

Abstract

This commentary considers an often overlooked contribution to food security in Australia—the labour of working holiday makers. Their ability to act as a flexible and mobile temporary workforce is essential to the maintenance of the Australian agricultural industry. Previously, no tax was payable on income below $18,200, but a 2015 proposal to increase their tax rate sparked a vigorous political debate and so revealed their importance to the agricultural industry. A decline in backpacker numbers would cause agriculture to shrink to cope with smaller workforces. But the effects of climate change are expected to further shrink agricultural areas as extreme events and hotter temperatures impact crops, livestock, and the productivity of agricultural workers. Issues that appear manageable when viewed in isolation, such as increases in the tax rate on working holiday makers, become more problematic when viewed in conjunction with other impacts affecting agriculture. Thus, the ‘backpacker tax’ risks making food security harder to maintain at a time when Australia's agricultural system is already vulnerable to climate change.

Momentarily immobile: Backpacking, farm work, and hostels in Bundaberg, Australia

“…Underhill and Rimmer (2016, p. 617) have referred to the “layered vulnerability” this arrangement instigates, as hosteliers are “driven by the imperative to fill beds [and] sometimes advertise work when it is not available.” In addition, the seasonality of farm work means that individuals often end up in marginal spaces feeling disconnected from local communities (Anderson, 2018) and are willing to endure the conditions for the minimum 88‐day requirement (Campbell et al, 2019). In this respect, Iaquinto (2018, p. 108) has described how “harvest work is suited to backpacking where distinctions between working and holidaying are blurred and where travelling to regions outside the realm of the conventional mass tourism” and can be desirable. Indeed, the 88 day component is often framed as an exciting, romanticised escape to the country.…”

“…The unique geographies of backpacking in Australia and increased reliance on temporary migrant labour leave room to build on past scholarship on backpacking and WHMs (Anderson, 2018; Iaquinto, 2018; Nagai, Benckendorff, & Tkaczynski, 2018; Peel & Steen, 2007; Peng & Hebbani, 2014; Robertson, 2014; Underhill & Rimmer, 2016). In particular, scholarship has neglected the evolution of hostels targeted almost exclusively for WHMs in regional areas, and thus overlooked an industry that facilitates most farm work for, and transport and accommodation needed by WHMs.…”

International backpackers' experiences of precarious visa-contingent farmwork

“…While the working holiday visa scheme has often been viewed as valuable in terms of backpackers as a labor source (Azarias et al, 2020;Boese and Moran, 2021), who farmers regard as preferable to local Australian workers , the scheme also meets a cultural exchange objective by giving backpackers the opportunity to see rural parts of Australia, outside of the cities and main tourist destinations, while earning money to continue their travels (Iaquinto, 2018). Backpackers typically have different motivations to migrants who intend to permanently make their lives in Australia; instead, for backpackers, the working vacation may be experienced as but an adventurous moment in life, without a plan to settle in a new country (Boese and Moran, 2021).…”