Since Parisian Louise Rousseau arrived in Australia on a working holiday visa in November 2025, she has worked at a Persian restaurant, a South West Rocks pub and a Macleay Valley piggery.
Under the government’s new working holiday visa rules, she would now have to try her luck in a ballot if she wished to stay in the country for a third year.
What happened: Amid a range of migration reforms announced last week were major changes to working holiday visas.
Backpackers from certain countries can currently access a second year on the working holiday visa by completing three months of regional work. Those seeking a third year need to complete six months of regional work.
New rules: The changes will mean backpackers applying for a second or third year will have to be selected through a ballot system, and will still be required to complete regional work.
Exactly how this will operate is yet to be announced.
A total of 45,000 places will be available for second year visas, and 5,000 places for third year visas.
The changes do not apply to citizens of the United Kingdom, who don’t need to do farm work due to a free trade agreement.
Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said the reforms would “ensure that our migration system can be better targeted to the current needs of Australia”.
No easy gig: Rousseau said the changes are “disappointing”, and questioned whether Aussies will be willing to work the seasonal jobs currently being filled by backpackers.
She completed her three months of “super hard” regional work on a pig farm, where she damaged her hand in machinery.
“I don't know a lot of people who want to do repetitive jobs in 50 degree heat, which aren’t really well paid and last for three or six months,” she told the Mid North Coaster.
Stressed travellers: Rousseau said the reforms had created “panic” and uncertainty within the backpacker community.
“People are asking: ‘Should I quit my job? Should I leave?’. Because there's no point doing five more months on a farm, if you don’t know if you will be able to stay.”
She believes the shift will change the way backpackers plan their Australian travel plans in the future.
“I think it is the end of the working holiday visa. Instead of doing farm work, people will just travel for a year.”
Lack of flexibility: Before her time at the piggery, Rousseau worked with three other European travellers at South West Rocks’ Seabreeze Hotel - waiting tables, serving drinks and singing for guests.
She believes rural businesses like the pub will suffer if backpackers are disincentivised from working regionally.
“They have their local workers, who work there all year, and then when there are peak seasons, they hire backpackers,” she said.
“[If they have a choice] a lot of backpackers would prefer to work in Sydney or big cities, rather than the middle of nowhere.”
Picker problems: Coffs Coast banana farmer and NSW Farmers spokesperson Paul Shoker said the changes would exacerbate the agriculture industry’s “severe deficit of workers”.
He thinks the region’s horticulture and dairy farms will be most impacted.
“The seasonal crops like your blueberries or avocados have a short window of picking out the crop,” Shoker told the Mid North Coaster.
“We need people to help in short windows.
“You're not going to see locals jump at these jobs because they are seasonal, they are short term, and they can be in remote locations as well.”