Working holiday visas are being processed more slowly, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed on Sunday, following the direction he gave his department in late July to put applicants already in Australia ahead of those applying from overseas.
Burke said processing continues, just at a slower rate, and gave no further reason for it. The July direction is expected to reduce net overseas migration, the figure that counts arrivals against departures and the one the government is measured against.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics put net overseas migration at 306,000 for the year to 30 June 2025. That was down 124,000 on the year before and the second consecutive fall from the 2022 to 2023 peak of 538,000. Treasury forecasts the figure settling near 225,000 by 2026 to 2027. The number of people in Australia on a working holiday visa passed 210,000 in June 2025, about 100,000 more than before the pandemic.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan, who took the leadership in March, said the working holiday program is not the source of the pressure. "It's not where the problems are," he said. He wants the international student intake cut by 25% instead.
The Coalition has not settled a position. It has raised the possibility of modest reductions to working holiday, student and post-study work visas without saying what they would be.
Pauline Hanson said cutting backpacker numbers would hurt the farmers who depend on them. She wants restrictions applied instead to arrivals from countries on the government's do-not-travel list.
Burke has pointed separately to conditions in the industries that use the visa, saying some operators have shifted from Pacific workers, who arrive under a regulated scheme carrying set obligations for an employer, to backpackers, who do not.
The working holiday visa is uncapped for most partner countries, and its holders count towards net overseas migration for as long as they stay. The July direction does not change how many people arrive. It changes the order in which they are dealt with, and it puts the people already onshore at the front of it.
Burke did not say how long the slower processing will run. The effect of the July direction on net overseas migration will not be visible until the Bureau publishes figures covering the second half of 2026.
