No Work and Holiday visa for Indians: clarifies Australia

No Work and Holiday visa for Indians: clarifies Australia

Amid worries that some fraudulent migration agents resort to misinformation about Australia's Work and Holiday visa to trap innocent visa seekers, Australia's Home Affairs Department has made it clear that this visa is not yet accessible to Indians. 

The Department claims that any work and holiday visa applications from India will not succeed as India is not presently among the nations eligible for this visa.

However, the Department has verified, that India is one of the 13 nations with which Australia is presently negotiating to include them in the visa program.

A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs told. “Australia does not currently have a Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visa arrangement with India, so any application for this visa from an Indian national would not meet the legislative requirements,” 

Immigration Minister David Coleman, while addressing issues that adding more nations to this program might transform it into a gateway to Australia for low-skilled migrants, said last week that candidates would have to satisfy minimum requirements, including English at functional level.

The countries that Australia is negotiating with include Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, Switzerland, Mongolia, Monaco, Lithuania, Latvia, Fiji, Croatia, Solomon Islands and Andorra. India’s name is nowhere mentioned in this list. 

Farmer's organizations in Australia have been calling for a stand-alone farming visa that would enable them to recruit overseas workers especially for farm work. Negotiations between the government and these 13 nations to include them in the Work and Holiday program are thought to be a measure to curb the shortage of farm labor. 

Home Department confirms that there are no such visa arrangements with India in near future also.