Despite work over four-months, 189 submissions and meeting with over 150 stakeholders around the country, The Australian reports that that the changes set out in the ­sc457 review were akin to “maintenance” rather than reform.

Employers have immediately come out complaining of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s rejection of the Reviews recommendation to remove Labour market testing: “It is disappointing employers remain subject to unnecessary ­labour-market testing measures,” said Steve Knott, the head of the Australian Mines and Metals Association. “The labour-market testing was never done in response to an actual economic or policy need — it was implemented by the former government pandering to crass class-war rhetoric.”

Employers have however welcomed the reviews other recommendation and the Ministers announcement that he will be looking closely into the Reviews recommendation to relax the English-language requirements for visa applicants.

The review in essence has given the current program a clean bill of health indicating that there was consensus on the programs fundamental tenets, namely:

• employers have a legitimate need to employ skilled overseas workers;
• that the main rationale for employing such workers is to fill gaps in the Australian workforce;
• that overseas workers should not displace Australians; that Australian workers should be trained;
• and that the employment rights and workplace entitlements of 457 visa holders should be the same as those of Australian workers

The review makes some 22 recommendations including the following:

The report has been released and can be found here:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/09/10/morrison-highlights-proposed-changes-457-visa-scheme

In a drive to promote Australian education to China, Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne has embarked on a five day visit to China and Laos to strengthen Australia’s commitment to education cooperation.

Mr Pyne said international education is a core element of Australia’s economic prosperity and social advancement, and China continues to be Australia’s most important education partner.

In a speech yesterday at Peking University, Mr Pyne sought to strike a balance between openness to international students and the maintenance of standards stating that the government was “committed to ensuring Australia maintains its position as a top destination for Chinese and other international students”.

The Australian however reports that there is a concern on about how best — and how broadly — to judge risk within the student visa system. In particular, the report has questioned the effectiveness of the Streamlined Visa Processing system for student visas (SVP) which generally makes it quicker and easier for students to obtain visas provided they enrol in one of the education providers approved under the system.

The report states that with the grand total of universities, private providers and public TAFEs with access to the streamlined visa processing system now edging towards 130 after the government offered entry to another 79 providers, international education leader Phil Honeywood has questioned the effectiveness of SVP.

The Australian dream is turning the traditional ‘dowry system’ for marriages on its head in India. Brides in Punjab who are undertaking or willing to undertake nursing courses are getting popular and being enticed with the promise of a fully funded education in nursing, reports the Indian newspaper, Hindustan Times.

The high demand for nurses — as brides and otherwise — has caused a spike in the number of private nursing institutes in India the last decade, notes a recent report in The Hindustan Times. According to the report, the Punjab Nurses Registration Council statistics revealed that the number of private institutes offering nursing courses like ANM, GNM, BSc, post-basic BSc and MSc jumped from around 138 in 2006 to 559 in 2014.

The report notes that nurses from Punjab are heading for jobs in as many as 27 countries with the top 3 being Canada, Australia and the United States of America. Other destinations include Tanzania, Botswana, Georgia, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

“Not surprisingly thus, the state council and the mushrooming nursing institutes have become a common haunt for wannabe grooms,” notes the report.

"Punjab, a state with poor sex ratio and female literacy figures unlike Kerala, is also increasingly taking the nursing route to foreign shores. And this lure of settling overseas is turning the system of “contract marriage” on its head. In exchange for sponsoring courses and visa fee, women are taking ‘husbands’ to countries like Canada, Australia, US and New Zealand, after getting the NRI tag,” notes the report.

In India, a dowry is an agreed payment and forms part of a traditional ‘marriage contract’ where cash or some kind of gifts are given to a bridegroom's family along with the bride. The dowry system is thought to put great financial burden on the bride's family. It has been cited as one of the reasons for families and women in India resorting to sex selection in favour of sons. This has distorted the sex ratio of India (940 females per thousand males) and may have given rise to female foeticide. The payment of a dowry has been prohibited under The 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act in Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Migration Alliance queried the status of Priority Group 5 applications last week.  The DIBP have responded as follows:

Dear Ms Allan, XXXXXXX [name removed for privacy reasons] passed your e-mail to the Skilled Migration Policy branch as the issues raised by your members are handled in this branch. 

As you would appreciate, Australia runs a demand driven skilled migration program to meet the current and emerging skill needs of the Australian labour market and to strengthen the whole economy.  Skilled migration policies are tailored to meet this objective and have always changed to reflect the prevailing economic conditions of the time.