In a coup for the dairy industry, senior farmhands have been recognised as skilled workers and are now, for the first time, eligible for 457 visas.
Dairy Australia policy strategy manager Claire Miller said Australian Dairy Farmers and DA had been negotiating with the Department of Immigration for a year to achieve the Dairy Industry Template Labour Agreement.
Under the agreement, as of July, dairy farmers can recruit senior farmhands from overseas on 457 skilled, temporary work visas.
She said it was a terrific result for the industry that would help specific farms deal with the trends of increasing farm size and skilled labour shortages.
Ms Miller said senior farmhands had previously not been eligible for 457 skilled visas because under the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO), on which the 457 visa eligibility is based, it is not recognised as a skilled occupation.
“The problem for dairy, and in fact agriculture more broadly is that ANZCO recognises farm managers as skill level 1, which is the equivalent of a Bachelor degree, but other farm workers are not recognised as skilled,” she said.
“Therefore, farmers could not recruit overseas for skilled, senior farmhands.
“Although the dairy industry is working hard to educate and train people, including through programs such as Cows Create Careers and those offered through the National Centre for Dairy Education (NCDE), there is an emerging and growing demand for skilled workers and we, as an industry, can’t keep up.”
She said the Dairy Industry Template Labour Agreement recognises that although senior farmhands are not on the ANZCO list of skilled occupations, they are skilled and in demand, and are eligible for 457 visas.
“In the short to medium term, the industry is still working really hard for train people because of course the preference is still to employ Australians but as farms are trending to get larger, they are more than what families can manage and they need to employ people,” Ms Miller said.
“The feedback we [at Dairy Australia] have received is the lack of access to skilled and experienced staff is holding farmers back from expanding.”
She said there was still “a lot of paperwork” to sponsor and employ a 457 visa worker, but it gave farmers in desperate need another option.
“It is long overdue to have senior farmhands recognised as skilled,” she said.
The industry negotiated the industry Template Labour Agreement on the basis of applications from a pilot group of nine dairy farms. Ms Miller expects these farms (six of which are in Victoria) to be the first to benefit from the change.
Senior farmhands recruited under the labour agreement must have Certificate III or equivalent qualifications and at least three years of recent and relevant experience, or at least five years of recent and relevant experience.
Dairy farmers can find out more about employing overseas staff at a series of three United Dairyfarmers of Victoria forums in South-West Victoria next week. The sessions will be at the Timboon Railway Shed Distillery on Wednesday, August 5 at 11.30am; at Mickey Bourke’s Koroit Hotel on Wednesday, August 5 at 7pm and at the Allansford Hotel on Thursday, August 6 at 11.30am. RSVP (necessary) with VFF Member Services on 1300 882 833.
