The working holiday visa has been a popular stepping stone to the 457 visa and subsequently a permanent residence visa. Many skilled working holiday visa holders with carefully prepared and planned migration pathways have successfully made the transition. Australia has been promising to expand the program and has already added Greece and Poland to the list. Now, another European country is set to join their ranks.

The Spanish Ambassador has revealed that Australia and Spain are set to sign an agreement under the working holiday visa program to allow youth aged 18 to 31 to live, work and study for 12 months in each other’s countries.

Under the Australian-Spanish deal, the visa holders are expected to be able to work full time as long as they don't clock up more than six months with a single employer. They can also study for up to four months in the same course.

The news reported by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo states that Australian youth will also have the same the privileges under “the agreement expected to be finalized shortly”.

“The visa scheme will be up and running within 12 to 18 months although provisional arrangements could be in place by as early as the end of the year,” Spain's ambassador to Australia Enrique Viguera told El Mundo.

Youth unemployment in Spain is reportedly currently running at over 50 percent compared to the 13 percent in Australia.

Reuters has reported that the graft crackdown in China is driving wealthy Chinese out of China. “President Xi Jinping's 18-month-old drive against the pervasive graft that he says threatens the Communist Party's survival, is a fear that is even causing some officials to take their own lives,” according to the report.

Ordinary Chinese citizens can legally transfer only $50,000 overseas each year, but vast sums leak out of China using a variety of loopholes, such as funnelling money through the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, according to Reuters.

"The restrictions in China are becoming more onerous…That's triggered an increase in the amount of money that's looking to move out of China or probably is already outside of China and is looking to be spent” notes the report.

Where is the money going? The United States is the main target destination. However due to the surge in applications for the US investor visa known as the EB-5, the program has reached its yearly quota of 10,000 for the first time in its 24- year history with wait times for future applicants expected to stretch out to as long as five years or more, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Canada, which had granted visas to those who lent 800,000 Canadian dollars (US$734,245) interest-free to one of the country’s provincial governments, canned the program earlier this year but is however looking to replace it. There will be no surprise if one similar to Australia’s $5million SIV program is launched.

As such, Australia, Europe and the Caribbean are emerging as alternative destinations for China’s rich. At the end of July,  88% of the 343 such visas granted under Australia’s SIV program were to mainland Chinese, representing over A$1.7 billion worth of committed investments.

An unregistered migration agent has been convicted and sentenced for migration fraud offences in the Magistrates Court of Victoria, according to the office of the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash.

The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) into unlawful migration assistance to visa applicants, according to a statement from the Minister’s office.

Maria Nani was found guilty of providing false documentation to visa applicants in return for money. The former migration agent continued to provide unlawful assistance to visa applicants after her registration was cancelled by the Office of Migration Agents Registration Authority, who had determined that she was not a fit and proper person to give migration assistance. Nani was found guilty of having assisted non-genuine applications for skilled and family visas.

At the court hearing earlier this month, Nani lodged a plea of guilty and was convicted. She was sentenced to a community corrections order of 300 hours' community service over 18 months across all charges, fined $10 000 and ordered to pay $113.90 costs and $4075 in repatriation orders.

According to a report in the Herald Sun, Magistrate Peter Mealy said,”She was dealing with vulnerable people she chose to exact from them moneys she knew she was not entitled to… She chose to enrich herself at their cost."

Prosecutor Raphael de Vietri said Nani duped 17 visa hopefuls in believing she could help them secure residency. She charged almost $30,000 and had received payment of more than $11,000 before her arrest.

Last year, nearly 29,000 sc457 visas were cancelled due to poor business conditions, forcing these temporary workers to go back home. The Australian reports that the number of foreigners ­applying for a four-year work visa fell below 50,000 during 2013-14 — and the number of foreign tradies looking for work halved to 12,000.

Referring to unpublished DIBP statistics, the report states that compared to last year, the total number of sc457 visa cancellations increased by about 45%.

The lower skilled visa applications were hit the hardest as applications from foreigners for clerical and administrative jobs crashed 80 per cent to just 660 during 2013-14, compared with 3370 the year before.

With Australia’s unemployment rate levels above 6.1 per cent, the number of foreign managers applying to work here fell 41 per cent to 9720. Visa applications from professionals fell almost a third to 24,810.

The biggest employer of foreign workers — the tourism and hospitality sector — saw applications halve to 5330 during the year.

The idea for a new permanent visa for entrepreneurs of small businesses who create jobs in Australia has been floated by Labour’s Chris Bowen who believes that temporary visa holders who prove that they can create jobs are important for the Australian economy and should be allowed to remain permanently, reports the Australian.

Chris Bowen introduced the significant investor visa which during his time as immigration minister never really got off the ground. But his idea has in the recent year gained a great deal of traction with 1095 SIV applications in the pipeline and some 343 SIVs granted.

Mr Bowen is now talking about introducing a more basic entrepreneur visa which essentially is  not based on a dollar value but rather on the number of jobs the entrepreneur can create during their stint on a temporary visa.

According to the Australian, Mr Bowen told a Queensland Media Club luncheon that someone on a temporary visa could be asked to demonstrate how they could turn $50,000 into a company employing 15 people. If their start-up plan worked, they would be given a permanent visa.

"We can do better when it comes to attracting people with the entrepreneurial spirit…If you've managed to take $50,000 and turn it into a company, which is employing 15 people in three years, I reckon you're going to make a pretty important contribution to the Australian economy going forward.

"New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Singapore, among other nations, have all introduced specific entrepreneur visas and Labor believes in going down this road as well."