Australian Immigration Daily News

GILES: There is a crisis of exploitation in Australian workplaces. Too many workers are forced to confront vulnerability created by our visa system. This means more wage theft for workers.

Australians and people who hold temporary visas alike. People too terrified to speak out when they are mistreated.

We all know this happens. There is clear evidence of the systemic nature of exploitation in Australia's labour market. Unscrupulous employers and facilitators have misused visa rules to exploit workers.

The Migration Amendment (Extension of Subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) Visa and Increase in Subclass 500 (Student) Visa Work Hours) Regulations 2023 (the amending Regulations) amend the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Migration Regulations) to give effect to commitments made by the Government following the Jobs and Skills Summit and developed further after advice from a working group made up of the Council of International Education, the National Tertiary Education Union, Universities Australia, and the Departments of Home Affairs and Education.

Source: Migration-Amendment-Extension-of-sc482-and-increase-in-sc500-student-visa-work-hours.pdf and 

Migration-Amendment-Extension-of-sc482-and-increase-in-sc500-student-visa-work-hours----explanatory-statement.pdf

The Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional) visa in the Regional Provisional Stream is the pathway to permanent residence for eligible holders of the Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) (subclass 491) and Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) (subclass 494) visas. 

Please be advised that there is no minimum income requirement for the Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional) visa (subclass 191), as there is no legislative instrument in place specifying a minimum income threshold for this visa. 

Primary applicants must provide notices of assessment issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for three income years out of the five years of their eligible visa.  Primary applicants who have already lodged should check and ensure their application provides these three notices. 

The fees payable in the federal courts and tribunals will increase from 1 July 2023 to reflect changes to the consumer price index over the past financial year. This is an automatic increase provided by the relevant fee regulations. 

Please find a copy below of the notice published in the Government Notices Gazette  (https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023G00663) on 16 June 2023 setting out the new fees payable.

Gazette-Notice-C2023G00663---Annual-federal-courts-and-tribunals-fee-increases-from-1-July-2023.pdf

The Federal Government will protect workers at risk of exploitation with a package of measures that target employers who seek to exploit temporary visa holders and ensure workers can speak up without fear of reprisal. One in six recent migrants to Australia is paid less than the minimum wage.

This exploitation doesn’t just hurt the individual worker, but effectively drives down wages and worsens conditions for all Australian workers.

After a decade of neglect, the Federal Government is cleaning up the mess of the former Opposition Government who failed to implement key recommendations in the Migrant Workers Taskforce Report.