WORKING holiday visas for young Fijians to work in Australia for a period of time are currently being explored by the Australian and Fijian Governments.
This was revealed yesterday by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop who was addressing participants at the Fiji-Australia Business Council Forum in Suva.
Ms Bishop said among numerous programs both governments were keen on introducing, there was talk of implementing a working holiday visa scheme for young Fijians.
“We’re exploring a working holiday visa for young Fijians to come to Australia. We’ve had this working holiday visa around for a while and we get an enormous response from Europe and South East Asia,” she said.
“But we want to see young Fijians having the opportunity to work on holiday in Australia and also bring their mums and dads and friends over to visit them and have a holiday in Australia as well.”
Ms Bishop also announced that very recently Fiji had been accepted into the New Colombo Plan, under which Australian students come into Fiji to study here before returning to Australia.
“Some of you might remember the original Colombo Plan that was post-second World War where we brought lots of students from South East Asia into Australia to study in universities and gain qualifications etc.
“It’s time we send young Australians into your region to study at your universities and learn from you and live with your families and learn in your businesses.
“So we started up what we called the New Colombo Plan and we invited 38 countries in the Indian Ocean/Asia Pacific to be part of the new plan and 38 of them have been accepted, including Fiji.”
