You have been granted your first Working Holiday VISA. Awesome. Now after a couple of months of traveling you realize you absolutely love it. Logical thing to do: stay for another year! Just go for it!
While doing my farmwork, I noticed there is a lot of nonsense going around about the 2nd year Visa. A lot of backpackers spread these just because they heard it from another backpacker and this way they keeping spreading the rumours around. Chances are you’ve been told things that aren’t true in the slightest. If you look at facebook pages or travelblogs it seems hard for a lot of people to find farmwork. But is it really? so here below also some tips on how to find farmwork.
Where do you begin to look for farmwork?
The easiest way to find the good spots is talk to other backpackers. There are enough backpackers who did their farmwork and they all have experiences and ideas to share with you. Even if they had negative experiences it is good to know where NOT to go.
On facebook there are a lot of groups, such as Australia backpackers, Australian independent Backpackers, Australia Network Backpackers, Australian backpackers Watchout List,…. A lot of positive and negative experiences are being shared here and you can get some good leads from just chechking out these pages.
The Harvest labour Services is a governement agency linking workers with farmers and growers around Australia. You can easily call them on 1800 062 332 and they will give you info and tips about were workers are needed. Every state has a local governement farming organisation as well, you can ring them up for more information and good places to stay.
A lot of people use gumtree for finding farmwork. Watch out though, because it’s also the favourite website of scammers. I am not saying gumtree is useless, just be more carefull when using it. Since it is anonymous and people can make as many new accounts as they want using different names, it is very easy to scam. If you are calling on sending somebody an email and their name is different than their name on gumtree: watch out! If you’re unsure, call harvesttrail or post the link on one of the previously mentioned facebook pages. Chances are people already had a good or bad experience with this ad and will be happy to advise you. The backpacker community in Australia is amazing!
Picktheworld.org might be usefull too. People list their farming experiences on here, together with a phonenumber so you can call the specific farmers themselves. The website also lists which are the types of crops and harvesting times for those crops. Since this is a non-profit organisation and it relies on peer to peer sharing, some of the numbers might be out of use.
When you start looking for farmwork, remember that is has to be regional work. This means it has to be a postcode from rural areas. In other words, work close to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane doesn’t count. This document states wich postcodes are valid as regional work.
What about all the official stuff?
Wages?
Since August last year, volunteering with HelpX or WWOOF doesn’t count as farmwork any longer. You have to be paid official wages that comply with the national standards set by Fairwork.gov.au. This means that they must pay you minimum wages per worked hour. Ofcourse the farming industry has found a loophole. When you do piecework, these wages don’t have to reach the minimum wage per hour. Normal piecerate should give an average worker the chance to make the minimum wage, ofcourse this is usually not the way it goes. A lot of the piecerate is made up to pay us -the workers- less than minimum wage. If you find yourself in a similar situation, move on to another job or farm that is fair. If this is not possible, don’t worry, it is still elligelible for your second year visa, you just won’t be able to save any money.
Find more info about minimum wages and piece rate work on these pages.
Period of how long?
You have to do farmwork for a period of 88 days (about three months). When you are working a full workweek -or doing as much hours as a standard workweek- you apply as if you’re doing a full time job, so you only have to do three months during which your days off get counted too. If you are doing seperate days and not reaching the minimum ammount of hours for a full workweek, you will have to do the full 88 days. Even if you are employed as a casual, if you reach the ammount of hours needed to do a full time, you can count it as a full time and can count the weekends.
An example:
You work 10 hours a day for 4 days a week. This counts up to 40 hours a week wich is more then the requirement for a full time so wou will be able to count your days off to.
Documents needed?
Since the law got stricter, you’ll need payslips from now on to prove that you have been paid for the work you have done. The payslips are mostly given out per week. This is the information that has to be on them: – Name of the employer or company – Name of the employee – ABN number – Ammount of hours/days worked – Amount of wages – Time period
– Kind of work and way paid (piecework / hourly rate)