Australia slows down ‘backpacker visas’ in fresh migration crackdown

Australia is slowing the issuance of new “working holiday” visas popular with backpackers as the government looks at policies to cut migration to the country.

“They are still being processed, but they are being processed more slowly than they were previously,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Sunday.

The visas allow people to come to Australia to work and travel for a set period of time, and are popular with European and Japanese citizens.

Applications for people from 24 nations with an annual cap are “paused” for the current financial year, which began in July, according to the department’s website. Processing times for people from nations with no cap have started to get longer since July, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The Minister had been planning to announce new migration curbs at a speech earlier this month, but that was cancelled at the last minute and the new policy was currently “going through a cabinet process,” Burke said on Sunday, declining to say when the new policy would be announced.