Australian Immigration Daily News

New Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) analysis shows that in 2016 half of the 1.5 million temporary residents in Australia were living in Sydney (27 per cent) and Melbourne (24 per cent) with a further 14 per cent calling Brisbane home.

ABS Director of Migration Statistics, Myles Burleigh, said for the first time detailed social and economic characteristics of temporary residents in Australia have been made available through the 2016 Australian Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset (ACTEID).

“By combining 2016 Census data and temporary visa information from the Department of Home Affairs, we now have a comprehensive picture of where groups of temporary residents live, the countries they come from, what work they do, what they earn and if they are studying,” he said.

The VETASSESS website is currently showing the following message:

Please note system maintenance activities are planned for Thursday 14th of February 2019, between 05:00pm and 06:00pm (AEDT).  During this period you will not be able to either lodge new applications or check the status of existing applications.  We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Source: https://www1.skillassess.com/Account

The following news is just in from Victoria:

We are pleased to advise that Victoria will begin issuing invitations and assessing nomination applications for affected business and investor visa subclasses from
18 February 2019.

Please note that an Expression of Interest (EOI) process will be introduced for the following visas:

In a report released today, The Business Council of Australia recommends:

 The ‘ceiling’ for the permanent migration intake should remain at 190,000 per annum in 2019-20, with 128,550 places reserved for skilled migrants and the remainder for the family stream.

 Consider setting the ceiling of 190,000 per annum for the next three years – 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 – to provide business, governments and the community with greater certainty about the future intake and to support better long term planning for growth

The following Migration Newsletter 713 for February 2019, produced by Lewis & Bollard makes excellent reading:

Migration_Newsletter_713.02.pdf