Australian Immigration Daily News

Australian Federal government delivered the budget on Tuesday night.  The budget highlights several important elements relevant to immigration which are summarised for ease of reference.

Investment into VET Sector

In 2018, there were 7.3 million migrants living in Australia. This was 29% of the population that were born overseas. One year earlier, in 2017, there were 7.1 million people born overseas.

Every single country from around the world was represented in Australia's population in 2018. People born in:

England (992,000) continue to be the largest group of overseas-born living in Australia. However, this has dropped from a peak of just over a million (1,013,000 people) in 2013

China (651,000) remained in second place from 2017 with strong growth since 2002

India (592,000) moved into third place dropping the New Zealand born (568,000) down to fourth place

Australia (17.7 million) had increased 188,000 during the year.

Source: ABS-Migration-Australia-2017-18.pdf

Recommendations

Recommendation 1
2.95 The committee recommends that the Australian Government continue to
monitor the trajectory of visa applications and grants under the Temporary
Skills Shortage (Subclass 482) visa over the next six months, with a view to
making any necessary adjustments to the overall settings for this visa subclass
in 2020.

Recommendation 2
2.100 The committee recommends that the Australian Government increase the
Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) to a minimum of at
least $62,000, and mandate that the rate of the TSMIT be indexed annually in
line with the average full-time wage.

The purpose of the instrument is to specify the number of weeks which determines the measure of an academic year for meeting the Australian study requirement.

This requirement is relevant to the Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) and the skilled migration points test as part of applying for General Skilled Migration (GSM) visas. Students applying for a Temporary Graduate visa must have met the Australian study requirement in the six months prior to lodging their application.

Students applying for a GSM visa can earn points under the skilled migration points test if they meet the Australian study requirement. The intention is to remove any uncertainty as to the number of weeks a course must be registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students.

The instrument operates to specify a class of persons who are “fast track applicants”.

The specification will become relevant if a person in that class of persons makes an application for a protection visa, as they will be subject to the processing of their protection visa and any available review rights as a fast track applicant.

A “protection visa” is defined to mean the visa classes provided for in section 35A of the Act, which includes all permanent protection visas and temporary protection visas, including safe haven enterprise visas.