Editor's Blog

Despite only 10 visa’s being granted since the launch of the revamped Significant Investor Visa program last July, Australian Trade and Investment minister Steven Ciobo still believes there is nothing wrong with the changes and expects interest in the program to pick-up.

Fund managers however say the drastic fall in interest in the program which had 1,544 applications and 590 visa grants in the final 12 months under the previous version is due to several issues including complexity of the new version and a requirement that venture capital be repaid after four years — half the usual investment cycle in the industry.

According to a report in The Australian, several large asset managers active with the previous version of the program haven’t developed products that comply with the revamped one. Some smaller firms are put off by the cost of anticorruption checks on prospective clients. Given the four-year-turnaround rule, there is also the challenge of finding emerging-company investments that make a rapid return and can be sold quickly.

A recently formed intergovernmental body called, The Citizenship Loss Board has just started work on seeking to revoke the citizenship of hundreds of Australians within the next few months, if it can be proven that they are involved in terrorist activities.

Immigration Minister, Mr Peter Dutton recently revealed that the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was carrying out more than 400 “high priority” investigations, including “190 people domestically that may be involved in supporting terrorist-type activities”

Mr Dutton told The Australian that more than 100 Australians who hold dual citizenships could potentially be subject to the cancellation. The Citizenship Act amendments last year only allows for the citizenship cancellation of dual nationals as Australia’s international obligations mean it is unable to render a person stateless.

Concerns that some RPL providers are approving unskilled workers have resulted in both employers and unions labelling the RPL’s ‘tick and flick’ process as a rort and theft, according to an ABC report.

Some RPL providers commonly advertise quick and easy recognition of qualifications for the purposes of migration skills assessments. However, unions and employers have now banded together to protest against what they are claiming is a multi-million dollar rort in the private vocational education sector by some low quality RPL providers who are simply ticking off a checklist of skills they think that the worker already has in order to minimise the cost of actually delivering the required training – hence pocketing government funding and other fees without providing the training.

Recognition of Prior Learning, known as RPL, is an assessment process that converts work experience into Australian qualifications. Generally, anyone with a trade background, at least five years industry experience and worked in the trade in the last three years, may apply to have their skills recognised nationally through the scheme.

63 new occupations have been added to the NT state nomination occupation list ahead of the launch the $5 billion infrastructure projects’ loan scheme set for launch in July this year.

As the Federal Government gets ready to launch the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), which will administer its $5 billion loan scheme to stimulate northern development, the NT state government has opened up its skills list taking the number of occupations that the state government will sponsor for permanent (sc190) and temporary (sc489) visas to over 170 occupations.

Speaking about the NAIF initiatives, Resources, Energy and Northern Australia Minister Josh Frydenberg, these changes will help fuel greater economic growth and higher levels of immigration in the NT.

An overhaul of both the two most popular visa categories have been announced with some changes effective from tomorrow and further “significant changes” expected from 1 July 2016.

The department of immigration has told a Productivity Commission inquiry into migration that it was working on “significant” reform of the skilled migration and temporary activity visas that are “expected to improve Australia’s competitiveness and ability to attract highly skilled migrants”, according to a report in The Australian.