Australian Immigration Daily News

As reported earlier, the Department of Home Affairs has issued an interim allocation of subclass 491, 190, 188 and 132 visa nomination places to states and territories.  It is anticipated that that the interim nomination arrangement will continue until early – mid December 2020.

The Department of Home Affairs has directed that, all nominations must be justifiable in relation to their likely contribution to Australia’s economic recovery, and follow three priorities:

High quality subclass 188 and 132 (Business Innovation and Investment Program) nomination applications.

Wage theft and slavery-like practices continues to exist in our modern day society.  This is especially evident among specific groups such as temporary migrant workers.

According to the recent “Wage Theft in Australia” report, temporary migrant workers comprise up to 11% of the Australian labour market.  The Report States that in 2017, findings from the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey revealed that a substantial proportion of international students, backpackers and other temporary migrant workers were paid roughly half the legal minimum wage in their lowest paid job in Australia.

Migrant workers’ ability to seek remedies for underpayment is also an indicator of the efficacy of Australia’s labour law regime and institutions.

The following information has been released under Freedom of Information request from the Department of Home Affairs pertaining visa lodgements vs visa grants for the period of 1 January 2020 to 30 September 2020.

Source: Department of Home Affairs, 2020 (DD-4046.01)
Note 1: Includes primary and secondary applicants.

Migration Alliance has received a number of enquires regarding the 491 State Nominated Visas.  Below is a summary of 491 State Nominated Visas across each State.

New South Wales

NSW is currently not accepting or issuing new nominations for 491 via. In line with Home Affairs direction, NSW will commence invite applicants currently in selected health, ICT and engineering occupations, and who currently reside in NSW.

Business & Skilled Migration Queensland (BSMQ) have confirmed that the Business Program and the Skilled Migration program will remain suspended until further notice.

In the latest press release: https://migration.qld.gov.au/  BSMQ advised that it recognises that there are a number of applicants impacted by this situation and will endeavour to re-open the program in December 2021.

BSMQ State Nomination Program