I just watched the recent Four Corners episode on exploitation of Asian labour on working holiday visas, particularly on farms. Definitely worth a look. You can watch it on iview here:-
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/four-corners/NC1504H014S00
This confirmed all my experiences of the working holiday visa being the most rorted visa on the books. My wife used to work for a salon where working holiday maker staff would get the owner to bribe a farmer to sign off on their second visa application (by saying that the applicant had done 88 days work on a farm, which you need to do to get a second visa).
The Four Corners episode went through it all, people being withheld their wages in exchange for employers signing off on their second application, girls and women having to provide sexual favours either for rent or for their second application. Also people being drastically underpaid, as little as four dollars an hour for farm work.
One of my wife's friends went to a strawberry farm on a working holiday visa. The owner would deliberately give each worker only limited hours, thus limiting their income. A lot of these girls didnt have cars, so they would have to buy food at the company store (which was extremely expensive). They ended up more or less living hand to mouth. They wouldnt have bothered with working there but they needed to get their 88 days in order to make a second application.
A lot of the farms will only take Asian workers, as white backpackers are more outspoken and difficult to exploit. There is a part on the video where a labour hire contractor says "dont bring any more Europeans here".
Hopefully it gets to the stage where even our gutless politicians feel inclined to intervene.
Interesting. I might watch tonight.