Live: Home affairs minister considers backdown on backpacker visa policy

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is considering changing the government's backpacker visa policy, which was announced two months ago at the National Press Club.

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The federal government is considering a backdown on its backpacker visa policy, two months after immigration minister Tony Burke announced sweeping cuts at the National Press Club.

As part of its plan to reduce net migration to 225,000 people by 2028, Labor said it would impose a ballot system, to cap second-year visa places at 45,000 (down from 57,000 this year) and third-year places will be capped at 5,000, down from 31,000 this year.

However, Burke said the government is considering changes to its policy, that after outcry from the hospitality and agriculture sectors.

"The parameters were clear — the total numbers, which I had announced in the Press Club speech, were something that I could not compromise on," Burke said.

"But if we could find a better way of getting a similar immigration outcome with a better outcome for industry, then I wanted us to work to that.

Similarly, the prime minister last week sought to reinstate regional work obligations on British backpackers after ruling out such a move, after "representations" from industry and WA Premier Roger Cook.

The Australian is reporting the latest changes could include delaying the backpacker ballot until next year, and increasing third-year visas to 25,000.

Hello and welcome to our federal politics live blog! It's great to have you here for another day of federal politics news.

I'm Josh Boscaini, joining you live from Parliament House in Canberra, here and ready to bring you all of today's federal politics news.

The home affairs minister is considering backing down on changes to backpacker visas just months after announcing them at the National Press Club.

And my colleague Clare Armstrong will have all the latest from the COP31 summit in Türkiye throughout the morning.

It's nearly the end of the working week, so let's get right into the day's news and see what it brings us!