A new agriculture visa promising to bring thousands of workers from Southeast Asian countries onto farms by Christmas 2021 has been plagued by delays and has also fuelled tensions within the government.
The visa was ready to be rolled out in October, but more than four months on, not a single country has signed on.
The government is currently in negotiation with four countries. So far, Indonesia has signed a memorandum of understanding, but the status of the other three countries remains unknown.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud told SBS - the progress of the visa, announced last June, now rests with Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
"Well, I'm totally frustrated as are Australian farms. We put this in place on the first of October. The last thing to be done is for the bilaterals to be completed by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. That's their job. That's what they do day in day out and we expect them to do it. The foreign minister has given a myself and the Prime Minister a strong commitment that we'll be done January, February this year. We expect that to be lived up to and then what we need to do is just get on with the job and prove to the rest of the world that we are a good industry in which we look after these citizens and make sure that they have a pathway, a pathway to permanent residency to become part of this great nation."
SBS News has spoken with several embassies, which say they are in ongoing discussions with the Australian government but that there is no timeline for a final decision.
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