Labor's working holiday visa policy risks regional seats, experts say

After six months working as a chef in a Far North Queensland kitchen, Rocco Raseri should from today be eligible for his third year working holiday visa.

However, under the federal government's changes to the system, the number of spots up for grabs has gone from 31,000 last year, to now just over 5,000.

"With this uncertainty, probably I wouldn't even have done these six months of work," the 27-year-old Italian backpacker said.

"That is a lot [of time working] to not even get the opportunity to stay here."

Mr Raseri is one of thousands of casual seasonal workers who power Australia's winter holiday destination, and the country's third-largest foodbowl, in Far North Queensland.

He said if he had known his spot was not guaranteed, he would have made different choices, such as seeking sponsorship in a capital city.

"Probably just travelling in Australia to see as much as I can see, instead of staying six months in Cairns,"

he said.

"It's beautiful, but the goal was to get these days to apply for a visa."

Mr Raseri's change of heart is what businesses in backpacker-reliant regions fear most, and political analysts say it could cost Labor at the next federal election.

Vulnerable seats

Australian National University political marketing expert Andrew Hughes said working holiday visa changes put regional MPs in a tight spot.

Dr Hughes said the visa policy protected Labor's core city voters at the expense of backpacker-dependant regions nationwide.

The NTs Lingiari, Bullwinkel in WA, and several regional Tasmanian and New South Wales seats could now be in question, he said.

"It creates that wedge and that perception that the government has forgotten about the regions,"

he said.

However, Dr Hughes said Queensland votes were more vulnerable than any other state, particularly with "the rise of One Nation", and the far north's seat of Leichhardt would be ground zero.

Labor's Matt Smith won the long-held Coalition seat, spanning from Cairns to the Torres Strait, on a 9.5 per cent swing at last year's federal election.

It was one of seven new Labor seats delivered by Queensland, lifting its contribution from five to 12 of the state's 30 seats.

However, the LNP narrowly won the statewide vote by just over 1 per cent.

Since then, One Nation has surged in popularity, polling 36 per cent in Queensland, ahead of Labor's 25 per cent, according to this week's Newspoll.

Dr Hughes said the visa policy was a "significant" challenge to Mr Smith's hold on the crucial Labor seat.

"It shows whether he's connected and listening to the needs of all his electorate or just those in certain areas which are more Labor friendly," he said.

"He's going to have to try and defend a policy which he knows probably in his electorate does not work."

He said Labor would be keen to retain Leichhardt, which was a Coalition stronghold for decades under Warren Entsch who regularly crossed the parliamentary floor.

Focus on solutions

James Cook University political scientist Maxine Newlands agreed Queensland was "certainly unique" when it came to "bucking the trend" at federal level elections, making it worth major party focus.

However, she said regional MPs like Matt Smith did not need to publicly oppose the policy to bring confidence back to voters if alternatives were offered.

"It's got to be solution-led and it's got to be community solution led," she said.

She said Working Holiday Visa holders were the second-largest contributors to Australia's net overseas migration, placing them at the centre of the debate.

"The concern with this is obviously we're going to see a repetition of the shortage of workers that we saw during COVID," Dr Newlands said.

"[Leading up to the election] people are going to look and say to their local members, 'Have you done enough for us in the last three years?'"

Smith's plan

Earlier this week, Mr Smith told ABC Far North he was already having conversations with peak tourism and agriculture bodies in Cairns to come up with solutions.

"Then I can take that back to [Immigration Minister Tony Burke] and say 'Hey this is some of the stuff that's being thought of up here'," Mr Smith said.

The current scheme, he said, was not attracting enough workers to regional Australia.

He said more than a third of an estimated 211,000 working holiday-makers were British, who no longer needed to complete regional work for extra visas.

"They're all hanging out in Bondi … they're not helping us out here, and that's where the pressure is being felt," he said.

"The important thing throughout this process is to make sure regions like ours continue to get the workforce they need."

Mr Smith said increasing the Pacific Area Labor Mobility scheme was a viable option for the regions, but he would continue to work with stakeholders in the meantime.

"The last thing that any of us want to do is put the brakes on the tourism industry, particularly up here which has gone through so much over the last five or six years," he said.

Dr Hughes agreed the altruistic element of assisting Pacific nations tied into Labor's policy of assisting island nations like Tuvalu in the face of climate change and rising sea levels.

"Labor believes the working holiday changes takes some of the heat out of the migration debate, whereas I don't think it's achieved that outcome," he said.