General News
13 October, 2026
Hotelier fronts PM over visa changes
ATHERTON hotelier Michael Nasser was set to make a face-to-face appeal to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday to rethink proposed changes to the working holiday visa rules at a meeting organised by Member for Kennedy Bob Katter.
The Barron Valley Hotel owner, whose business accommodates up to 90 working backpackers at a time, has strongly criticised the changes which will involve a ballot system for working holiday-makers applying to stay a second or third year.
The second year will be limited to just 45,000 places, compared with 57,000 who qualified last year, while the third-year allocation will be slashed to just 5000, compared with 31,000 last year.
Mr Nasser says if the changes went ahead, not only farmers would be negatively impacted.
“It’s not just the farms that will be impacted, the hospitality industry up here relies on backpackers as well,” he said.
“The majority of the backpackers we accommodate work on farms in the surrounding region, but others are employed within our hotel – 14 at the moment – and other local hospitality businesses.
“This workforce is an essential part of our business but also of the regional economy as a whole.”
Mr Nasser said the business had made a decision many years ago to make a $5 million investment in restoration and renovation of the hotel to support accommodation and employment opportunities rather than rely on poker machines which the family “opposed”.
“Having spent years closely working with farmers, backpackers and hospitality operators, I have seen first-hand how important the requirement to work in regional areas has encouraged young international holiday workers to work outside the major cities,” he said.
“And the changes won’t help the housing crisis in regional areas because the vast majority of these backpackers are staying in hostels, places like our hotel, or on farms – they are not taking houses off Australians.
“It just doesn’t make sense for the government to be making changes that will heavily reduce a workforce that are willing to do the jobs that Australians either can’t do or don’t want to do – it just proves how out of touch with reality the Albanese Government is in making such harmful, stupid decisions.”
Mr Katter has been strong in his stance against the changes which he says targets the wrong sector in a bid for the government to achieve a politically acceptable migration number.
Mr Katter has called on Prime Minister Albanese to “not throw out the backpackers with the bathwater, when pulling the plug on the rising tide of migration”.
“Overwhelmingly, the pathway to permanent migration is through the student visa scheme – not backpackers – but if we’d stopped the universities from being visa shops 25 years ago, then we’d already have shut half of them down,” he said.
“But instead of closing down the foreign student factories, the government quietly turned off the tap of processing working holiday visas – a labour lifeline for our regional tourism hospitality and agricultural industries – and have now announced they want to choke the pipeline by capping visas in a lucky draw for backpackers who have already committed to regional and rural work to stay another year…?
“It’s illogical, at best, or even worse, downright stupidity.”
Mr Katter said North Queensland’s backpacker-reliant businesses were already feeling the fallout from the Immigration Minister’s announcement to withdraw the welcome mat for the world’s youth backpacker market.
“The backpackers who are here for a good time – not a long time – quite simply should never have even been considered as part of the backdoor migration cohort,” he said.
“Very few stay and those who do integrate into our towns – unlike the city-bound visa-hopping students and other so-called ‘temporary’ residents crammed largely into already overcrowded capital city enclaves.
“Whereas in our regions, backpackers pick our fruit, pour our beers, clean our hotel rooms, make our coffees… then spend their earnings exploring our wonderful country.
“And I thank them for coming here, doing the work, spending their money, and sharing their adventures with the world.”
