Working Holiday Visa for Indian Nationals - Hype vs Truth
Work and Holiday Visa (Subclass 462) visa allows nationals (aged from 18 - 30 years old) from eligible countries to extend their holidays in Australia by allowing them to work in order to fund their trip. The eligible countries who are included in this list are:
Argentina
Austria
Chile
China, People's Republic of
Czech Republic
Ecuador
Greece
Hungary
Indonesia
Israel
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Peru
Poland
Portugal
San Marino
Singapore
Slovak Republic
Slovenia
Spain
Thailand
Turkey
Uruguay
United States of America
Vietnam
There are about 150,000 people (in March) currently in Australia on this visa, but the program has actually shrunk over the past 5 years. In the plans to resolve labour shortage in regional areas, especially on farms, the Minister for Immigration, Mr. David Coleman has put in his support behind the initiative of including 13 countries to the current eligible list of countries eligible for this visa.
On 31st July 2019, Australian media put out a news saying that Indians and Mexicans could be included in this list:
This news update obviously created a big ripple in the Indian markets with unscrupulous agents operating in the market trying to ride on this and capturing the cash rich but ill-informed youth of certain regions (especially Punjab, Haryana, Gujrat regions).
At this stage, any application from India, would obviously not succeed as India is not officially a part of the eligible countries. However, the Department of Immigration has confirmed with SBS that India does happen to be part of the extra 13 countries it is considering for inclusion in this program.
Dodgy agents in India are already preparing for this news and some have even started advertising for this visa! SBS in their effort to curb the speculations, have put forward the following:
We wait to see how this story unfolds, but certainly do advise visa seekers not to jump the gun and seek professional advice rather than rely on un-registered, unscrupulous, dodgy agents who have big marketing budgets and are trying to cash up on these gullible visa seekers.
