'Deeply offensive' to suggest farmers 'prefer to abuse and exploit backpackers', NFF says

Australia's peak farming body has accused Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke of making "deeply offensive" comments about farmers, as concern grows over how changes to backpacker visas could affect the nation's agricultural workforce.

The National Farmers' Federation (NFF) has warned the changes could contribute to higher food prices if they leave growers without enough workers during key harvest periods — times when farmers often hire 'backpackers' on Working Holiday visas.

While Burke acknowledged the migration changes would create challenges for some, he suggested the agricultural sector could utilise additional capacity in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.

The scheme allows eligible Australian businesses to recruit workers from nine Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available.

Burke also said the strengthening of protections for PALM workers during his tenure as employment minister had led to warnings from some agricultural employers that they would turn away from the PALM scheme.

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"At the time that we were improving those rules, we had some of the farm organisations say to us, 'If you do this, our members will just go and use backpackers,'" Burke told SBS News.

"If the reason that people are more reliant on backpackers and refusing to use Pacific workers is because they're upset that we've ended exploitation in those areas, I think that is a very different question for a number of operators."

He also stressed the criticism did not apply to the entire agricultural sector, saying "that doesn't depict the whole of the farm sector, not for a minute".

Richard Shannon, executive officer of the NFF Horticulture Council, labelled Burke's comments as "provocative" and rejected any suggestion that employers had moved away from the PALM scheme because of stronger protections for workers.

"The minister is suggesting that employers in horticulture would prefer to abuse and exploit backpackers than remain in the PALM program," Shannon told SBS News.

"This is not about exploiting people and finding loopholes, and it's deeply offensive."

Shannon argued that the reason some employers had moved away from PALM was because changes to the scheme had increased costs and administrative requirements.

He said backpackers and PALM workers also served different purposes within the agricultural workforce and could not simply be substituted for one another.