Phnom Penh: The Cambodian Embassy in Australia has issued a notice informing Cambodians to be careful of all information on recruiting people to work in Australia under an “agriculture visa scheme”. The project has not yet been authorised and is currently being discussed by the Australian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture.

According to a statement from the Cambodian Embassy in Australia, social media, private companies and individuals have recently been advertising or providing “inaccurate or misleading information” on the as-yet fraudulent recruitment of Cambodians to work in Australia under the new "Agriculture visa”. The embassy has clarified that the visa is still under discussion.

When approved, the new agricultural visa scheme will provide opportunities for citizens of some Asian countries to go to Australia to work in the industrial sector, including the meat processing industry, with the opportunity to apply for permanent residency. The new visa scheme is expected to be finalised by the end of September. The Australian government is also expected to hold bilateral talks with a number of regional partners on the scheme.

The pressure to create such a visa has existed for decades, but after seeing problems created by a visa of the same name in the United States, the H2A visa, and similar visas in Europe and the Gulf states, the Department of Immigration did not want Australia to become a low-skill guest worker society. The main problems with low-skill guest worker visas are well known to immigration officials around the world. Workers face extreme levels of exploitation and abuse, high occupational health and safety risks and racism. Low pay and poor conditions can also undermine the job opportunities of unemployed locals.