Australian Immigration Daily News

• The Australian reports on Senator Dean Smith’s comments urging the Prime Minister to sanction an inquiry into Australia’s population policy. Senator Smith’s comments are motivated by a concern that the recent reduction in immigration does not adequately address community concerns regarding population levels and should go further.
• The Guardian reports on Peter Dutton’s praise of Australia’s reduction to immigration numbers, highlighting its benefit to Australia’s economy through an increase in skilled workers. This contradicts comments made by Scott Morrison who displayed concern towards the drop in immigration.

Dean Smith, Tony Abbott urge population debate to stop government perishing

• The Australian reports that Australia’s annual permanent migration intake has fallen by more than 10 per cent to less than 163,000, marking the lowest level for more than a decade on the back of a crackdown on fraudulent claims and a sharp rise in visa refusals under the government’s new integrity measures.
• The Adelaide Advertiser reports that the South Australian Greens say the Hodgman Liberal Government is 'unhealthily close' to the Chinese Communist regime as the number of state-sponsored visas from the country soars.
• The SBS Punjabi website features an interview with Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge about changes to Australia’s immigration policy.

Dutton's vetting drive slashes 20,000 from migrant intake

Applicants who submitted an expression of interest to apply for Skilled Independent (Subclass 189) or the Skilled Regional (Provisional Subclass 489) may be receiving an invitation from the Department of Home Affairs as early as today.  

The first round of invitations for the new migration year is expected to run between 11^th and 12^th July.  Historically speaking, the first invitation round in the new migration year generally results in a large volume of invitations.  It is expected that somewhere between 1000 to 2000 invitations will be sent for the Skilled Independent and around 100 invitations for the Skilled Regional visas. 

Skilled Migration programme has been significantly impacted by 1 July changes as a resulted of large number of expression of interest (EOI’s) lodged through Skill Select.  Skill Select initiative was launched by the Australian Government on 1 July 2012 which is an online service that enables skilled persons who are interested in obtaining an Australian visa to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) that includes information about their skills and other attributes. Skill Select issues invitations to apply to migrate based upon a ranking of the attributes of nominees and subject to ceilings on occupation numbers. Skill Select also enables staff of certain State/Territory government agencies and Australian employers to view relevant information in an intending migrant’s Expression of Interest (EoI). Due to the large volume of invitations currently in the system, the cut-off score for subsequent (post 1 July) invitation round increased to 65 points. 

The Andrews Labor Government is protecting hundreds of temporary visa workers across regional Victoria from exploitation.

Source: Standing-up-for-Victorias-Temporary-Visa-Workers.pdf

• Macro Business and Hello Care report on the Australian government’s proposal to offer ‘boutique’ visas to the country’s regions to boost skills shortages.
• The Daily Mail reports Australia has moved up one position in the 2018 Henley Passport Index to rank on the sixth tier of the world's best passports.

No relevant coverage today.