Australia Wants British Backpackers to Swap Bondi for the Outback

Anthony Albanese has put British backpackers on the agenda with his UK counterpart. The Australian prime minister raised the issue with Andy Burnham last week on the sidelines of the Commonwealth leaders' meeting in the Caribbean, alongside AI, online gender violence and the AUKUS defence pact. No announcement followed, but Albanese told reporters Burnham had been

The complaint is about a perk baked into the UK-Australia free trade deal that took effect in mid-2023. Brits on working holiday visas are exempt from the 88 days of regional work — farming, fisheries, tourism, hospitality — that other nationalities must complete for a second-year extension and six more months for a third. The deal also pushed the age limit to 35, from 30. British working holiday visas reached just over 77,000 in 2025-26, according to the latest government data, against 47,200 in 2023-24. Brits now account for almost a quarter of the 323,000 backpacker visas issued last year.

Up in Cairns, operators feel the shift in their rosters. Fintan Rafferty, who employs about 180 staff across four venues, says only five are British, where it used to be closer to 25. Mad Monkey hostels general manager Dan McConnell says French guests now outnumber British three to one at its Cairns site. Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Mark Olsen told Albanese the region's young British population peaked at around 20,000; it's closer to 11,000 now. Albanese ruled out forcing Brits into regional work barely a month ago, then the mood shifted under pressure from Far North Queensland businesses.

The bigger threat to regional farms may not be the UK deal at all. September proposals to cut net migration would overhaul working holiday extensions into a ballot: 45,000 places for a second year, where 57,000 qualified this year, and 5,000 for a third year against 31,000 this year. The National Farmers Federation, which says backpackers fill one in seven Australian farm jobs and about 52,000 working holidaymakers take horticulture work annually, called it

Not everyone in Cairns is against the old rule. Paige Tomlinson, 27, from Barnsley, has been in the city four months pulling drinks at Gilligan's and says she'd back regional work for all Brits:

About 200km north at Red Valley Farm in Lakeland, general manager Peter Inderbitzen hires roughly 25 backpackers a season to pick avocados, and says British applicants have