E.R.
Numbers
CORRECTIAL
6. Numbers of working holiday makers are not recorded separately but an indication
of their numbers can be derived from the figures for Commonwealth citizens given
leave to enter for 12 months. Those figures suggest that in 1978 Australians
given leave to enter as working holiday makers were of the order of 11,000.
Canadians were just over 1,000, and New Zealanders totalled around 6,200. These
figures do not include people from the Old Commonwealth who were admitted in ons capacity (e.g. as visitors) and given extensions of stay as working holiday makers; nor do they take account of citizens from other Commonwealth countries who may hate benefited but these are thought to be insignificant. In response to a recent
Question in the Australian Scnate, the Government spokesman estimated that betweez 12,000 and 15,000 Australians annually benefited from the working holiday previsions
of the United Kingdom Immigration Rules. This is consistent with the estimated
11,000 Australians given leave to enter, since the remainder could have been give leave to remain having entered in some other capacity.
Attitude of 012 Commonwealth countries
7. The Australian and New Zealand governments have in the past attached great
importance to the continuation of the working holiday maker arrangement and rated it above the provisions which benefit Commonwealth citizens with a grandparent
born in the UK. From despatches from Canberra and Wellington last year follching the Report of the Select Committee on Immigration, and the Question raised in the Australian Senate mentioned above, it seems that the provisions continue to te prized there. Abolition would without doubt have serious consequences for relati with the Old Commonwealth, and would very likely lead to retaliatory action (around 3,000 people from the United Kingdom are admitted annually for working holidays in Australia but under much more stringent conditions than apply to people coming to this country).
Arguments for change
8.
There are nevertheless arguments for change.
(a) Employment
The admission of such relatively large numbers with freedom to work can be argued to be difficult to defend in the face of high unemployme The comparison with the freedom of EEC nationals to come for work is 1: fresh than when the lules were made in 1973, and the EEC commitment in
3.
COMICITIAL