What if my country is not listed under holiday work visa countries?

I'm from South Africa and interested in a cattle ranch experience in Australia. Which visa would then be applicable for me as SA is not listed under the "holiday work" visa countries?

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What if my country is not listed under holiday work visa countries?

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Not listed? Then you can't get a Working Holiday visa.
by: Birgit

If your country is not on the list of countries that have that exchange agreement with Australia then you can't get a WHV.

When I first came to Oz, Germany was not on the list either (it is now). So I never had a working visa (not until much late when I became employer sponsored). A working holiday isn't something that everyone can get or is entitled to. It's a two way thing that Australia has negotiated with some countries.

The answer to your question is exactly the same as it is for people over 30:

If you are not in that age bracket or not from one of the eligible countries, then you can't get this Australian working visa.

That does not mean you are entitled to some other work visa that has a different name but does exactly the same. It means you can't get a Working Holiday visa. End of story.

Everything I say on that page also applies to you. You can still get any other visa that you do fulfil the requirements for. A tourist visa or a sponsored work visa or a student visa or whatever. It depends on your circumstances and what you want to do. Apart form the tourist visa, which doesn't allow you to work, none of the visas are all that easy to get.

Someone wanting a cattle station experience isn't a reason that Australia has to give them a working or working holiday visa. I also can't just come into South Africa or any other country and work there just because I'd like to have that experience. Would be nice if I could because I love to travel and would love to work in other countries and on other continents. But that's just not how it works.

You could check out the immigration website and see if you can wiggle in under some other work visa, you can go to Australia as a tourist and just work and hope you don't get caught (you should be ok on cattle stations), or you can work for bed and board as a Wwoofer on a station that takes Wwoofers or under any other arrangement where you don't get paid.

Wwoofing was mentioned on the bottom of the cattle station page.

And that's all I can tell you!
From South Africa is not a problem!
by: Joanna Burnet

Hi from Australia!

We are Visitoz. Every year we invite more than 50 young South Africans to come here on Internship Visas.

This visa works like a Working Holiday one - what the other guy told you is 100% correct, but he did not know about the Visitoz 365 day programme - it is for one year and you get well paid work.

The Visitoz (www.visitoz.org) programme gives you a 9-day introductory package - you are met at Brisbane Airport, taken into the city for one night and then you go, with the rest of your group, to Rainbow Beach for three days - to chill out, rest, relax or just play - to get over jet lag.

During the five days on one of our training farms you will ride horses, ride agricultural motorbikes, work cattle on foot in the yards and muster them from the paddocks, you will drive and operate tractors and machinery, you will do fencing and chain saw tasks. We will make sure that you know some basic vehicle maintenance and farm and outback safety.

While with us you will choose a job and go to it. On an Internship Visa you may work for this one employer for the whole of your 12 months if you wish, or you can take 2 or 3 shorter jobs to get a wider experience.

Many of the young people coming from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe ask to stay on - and if this is possible the employer will sponsor you. One young Zimbabwean, an ex farm manager there, is now a permanent resident of Australia - several others from Argentina, South Africa and Uzbekistan are in the process of being sponsored.

If you like to go to our web site and then fill in the enquiry form - note on their somewhere please that you got this information - and we will send you the application forms you need. The visa application is a big one and you need to have a Letter of Invitation from us to apply - the visa can take up to 3 months to be granted, but we have known it take only 30 days.

We look forward to hearing from you.

This came to me as a Google Alert on cattle station work - so it is good to know that the system works, and has worked well for you. I don't know when you posted your enquiry, but it came to me to-day 26th July.

Best wishes
Joanna and Dan Burnet

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