Department of Home Affairs conducted public consultation “Australia’s 2019-2020 Migration Program".  The purpose of the discussion paper is to seek public and stakeholder views on Australia’s current immigration program to ensure that immigration continues to serve the national interest and the interests of all Australians in the coming year. The rate, composition and distribution of immigration has significant impact on Australia's current population and distribution of the population (especially regional areas). Australia’s immigration programs are continuously reviewed to ensure that settings maximise the benefits migration brings to Australia.

Specifically, the paper focuses on the following permanent streams:

• Skill stream – improves the productive capacity of the economy and fills skill shortages in the labour market, including those in regional Australia. 
• Family stream – allows Australian citizens and permanent residents to reunite with close family members, including partners, and certain dependent relatives. 
• Special Eligibility stream - provides visas for those in special circumstances that do not fit into other streams, including former residents. The Special Eligibility stream is a very small component of the overall permanent Migration Program.

At current planning levels, the government anticipates to allocate approximately 190,000 places to permanent residency.  The government fell short of the target last year granting approximately 165 000 permanent residency visas.

Invitation rounds for Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) and Skilled Regional (provisional) visa (subclass 489) visas will be run once a month.

Current round

Citizenship and Migration decisions can be found on Page 3 of the latest AAT Bulletin dated 4 February 2019.

http://www.aat.gov.au/AAT/media/AAT/Files/AAT%20Bulletins/5-19.pdf

It is recommended that the Bulletin be read on-line. This has the advantage of allowing the reader to use hyperlinks to access the full text of cases and other internet sites mentioned in the Bulletin.

Skilled and Business Migration Update  - February 2019

The Skilled and Business Migration Program is pleased to launch its first bilingual site liveinmelbourne.vic.gov.au, now featuring comprehensive new content in Mandarin.

The Live in Melbourne website is the gateway for skilled, investor and business migrants to apply for Victorian visa nomination, and get information on living, working and doing business in Melbourne – one of the world’s most liveable cities.

China is Australia’s fastest growing and highest spending inbound tourism market, with 2.5 million Chinese tourists on tours per year.

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs David Coleman said making it as easy as possible to facilitate travel between China and Australia was a critical factor to the ongoing success of the Approved Destination Status (ADS).

“Streamlined and quicker visa processing times are a major drawcard of the ADS and have been replicated in other parts of the visa system,” Minister Coleman said.