Australian Immigration Daily News

Youth travellers spend over $7000 on average for their trip to Australia, according to statistics from Tourism Australia. The spend triples with those who stay over six months. Tourism NT (Northern Territory) is now planning its biggest roadshow targeting backpackers in order to get a cut of the youth tourist dollar.

Backpackers will be encouraged to ‘Do the NT’ as part of their Australian holiday under a new marketing initiative by the Northern Territory Government to launch early next year.

Tourism NT’s has announced that the inaugural ‘Backpack the Outback’ Roadshow will hit backpacker hot spots in Melbourne, Sydney and Byron Bay from 31 March – 6 April 2016.

An evidence-based review of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) for sc457 workers is underway, according to a recent statement from the office of the Minister of Immigration and Border Protection.

The last sc457 review recommended that the TSMIT is frozen at $53,900. In October, as part of the compromise to allow the passage of China-Australia Free Trade Agreement the Coalition government agreed to a review of the TSMIT. At that time, the opposition demanded an increase in the TSMIT to $57000.

Various industry bodies described the demand as unreasonable. Immigration Department figures obtained by The Australian show that, of the 13,239 visas granted under the 457 category to the end of September, 3581 fell below the proposed $57,000 threshold, equivalent to 27 per cent or over a quarter of all visas granted. Of those, 581 or 4.4 per cent of the 457 visas granted were right on the current threshold of $53,900, notes The Australian.

Was it the Christmas spirit or unrelenting media pressure and public backlash that led the Immigration Minister to reverse a decision not to grant a visitor visa to the mother of a Pakistani student dying of cancer in Melbourne?

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton yesterday allowed the mother of Hassan Asif to be with her 25-year old son in Australia in, what doctors say are likely to be, the last few days of his life.

The high commission in Islamabad last week refused Mr Asif's mother and brother's application to visit Australia on the grounds they were a flight a risk and would not return home. The decision was made despite the officers being aware that the young Melbourne student was suffering from terminal skin cancer. Mr Dutton, first stood by the decision saying it could cost the Australian public millions if the visitors did not return home after the visit.

In a trade-off with the unions for wage increases totalling 6% over 2 years, the department of immigration is seeking to axe at least 680 positions, according to a report on the ABC.

The proposed job cuts amount to about 5 percent of the total workforce according to the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU). It says this will put the staff “already struggling to deal with rapidly growing international passenger and freight numbers’ under tremendous pressure.

"This attempt to slash nearly 700 jobs is outrageous and shows just how ridiculous the Government's funding of Immigration and Border Protection is if the department has to cut this many jobs just to get closer to maintaining existing pay," national secretary Nadine Flood said.

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