Station work is covered by the Pastoral Award, MA000035, counts toward the 88 days of specified work for a second year visa, and almost always comes with accommodation and meals included. The pay looks low against city work until you account for the package.
What does the work actually involve?
Livestock and infrastructure, in whatever proportion the season demands. Mustering on horseback, motorbike or buggy, cattle handling in the yards including drafting, drenching, branding and vaccinating, calving and newborn care, fencing, bore and water trough maintenance, machinery and tractor operation, and general property upkeep.
Larger stations also carry a camp cook role and, less commonly, station administration. What you do depends on the type of property, the region and the season.
Where are the stations, and when do they hire?
The four main regions each run on their own calendar. The Northern Territory covers the Barkly Tableland, the Victoria River District and the Top End. Western Australia covers the Kimberley, the Pilbara, the mid west and the southern wheatbelt. Queensland covers the Channel Country, the north west and the Gulf. South Australia covers the far north and Eyre Peninsula.
The north runs on wet and dry seasons, and mustering happens in the dry. The south runs on hot summers and cooler winters. That difference determines when work is available.
What does the Pastoral Award set?
Minimum hourly rates by classification, along with conditions. Farm and Livestock Hand Level 1 covers new workers on basic tasks under supervision, Level 2 experienced workers with some autonomy, and Level 3 skilled workers operating machinery or leading small teams, with higher levels through leading hands and head stockmen. Separate classifications exist for shearing, shed work and broadacre cropping.
The award rate is a floor, not a going rate. From 1 July 2026 the casual minimum across all work is $33.05 an hour, being the $26.44 national minimum plus the 25% loading, and pastoral classifications run above that as experience is recognised. Many stations operate under enterprise agreements or individual arrangements, which must still leave you better off overall than the award.
How does the all found arrangement work?
The station provides a room in staff quarters or the homestead, meals from the station kitchen or rations for remote camps, and pays a cash rate for everything else. That is the all found arrangement, standard in rural Australia.
Where accommodation and meals are deducted from wages, the deduction has to be lawful and within award limits. Where they are genuinely provided, remote area fringe benefits concessions frequently apply to properties in genuinely remote locations, which can make the package more tax efficient than the cash figure suggests. Living away from home allowances apply in some classifications.
Does it count toward the second year visa?
Yes, provided four conditions hold. The work must be in a designated regional postcode, which most stations are. It must fall within the specified work categories, and animal cultivation including livestock does. It must be paid. And it must be documented, with payslips and with income reported to the ATO.
Documentation is where second year applications fail, not the work. A station that pays partly in cash, or never issued payslips, leaves you with the days worked and no evidence of them.
What happens if you are injured out there?
Workers compensation covers every employee on a station regardless of remoteness or length of service, and it covers evacuation costs. It pays medical treatment, weekly payments while you cannot work, and lump sums for permanent impairment.
Station work carries higher injury rates than most industries: animal handling injuries from kicks, crushing and falls, vehicle and machinery incidents on rough ground, heat illness, snake encounters, and the isolation that makes any of them worse. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is sometimes the only access to care. Our guide to workplace injury rights covers how a claim runs.
What can a station hand claim at tax time?
More than most working holiday roles, because station hands supply real gear. Work boots and riding boots, a protective hat, long sleeved work clothing and sun protection, gloves, personal tools such as a knife or fencing tools, and saddle and tack where you provide your own.
The test is whether the item is principally for the work rather than personal use. From 1 July 2026 the flat $1,000 work related deduction is also available without receipts, which for many station hands will be simpler than itemising.
What should you settle before you accept a job?
The terms, in writing, because renegotiating from a property four hours from the nearest town is not a real option. Confirm the classification and hourly rate, whether accommodation and meals are provided or deducted, what the deduction is, the expected hours and days, and how and when you will be paid.
Ask specifically about payslips and superannuation. Both are legal requirements rather than favours. Confirm too that the postcode qualifies for specified work if the second year visa is part of your reason for going.
How does the isolation affect getting paid correctly?
It makes verification harder rather than making the rules different. Mobile coverage is patchy, banking is intermittent, and checking a payslip against an award clause is a different exercise when the internet works for an hour a day.
So photograph every payslip as it arrives and keep a daily log of hours from the first week. Reconstructing four months of a muster season after you have left is close to impossible.
The arrangement on the property decides it.
The award is the same everywhere. What you are paid is decided by the arrangement on the particular property.
- Which classification your duties correspond to, since Level 1 and Level 3 are materially different rates.
- Whether an enterprise agreement applies instead of the award.
- Whether accommodation and meals are provided or deducted, and whether any deduction is within award limits.
- Whether the property is remote enough for the fringe benefits concessions to apply.
- Whether the postcode and the work type qualify for the 88 days, and whether it is documented.
- Whether payslips were issued at all, which decides both the visa evidence and any wage claim.
- Whether 12% superannuation was paid on the cash component.
The year is reconciled in the working holiday tax return, and you can estimate your tax refund from what was actually withheld.