The peak body of the restaurant and catering industry says it has struck a special deal with the government to make it easier to bring in overseas workers through the 457 skilled migration visa program.

The sector is currently experiencing a shortfall of 56,000 workers with Chefs, cooks and restaurant managers among the most difficult vacancies to fill, according to statement released by Restaurant & Catering Australia (R&CA). The R&CA is the industry’s peak body that representing some 35,000 restaurants and catering businesses across Australia.

The statement says that employment growth in the cafe, restaurant and takeaway food services sector will require an additional 43,700 jobs by November 2018. The rate of employment growth in this sector is expected to be higher than any other sector in the Australian economy, growing at around 8.5 per cent.

To deal with the ‘chronic labour shortage’ the labour agreement will lower the temporary skilled migration income threshold (TSMIT) by 10 per cent for restaurants that meet specific criteria.

At the end of July 2015 I wrote an article titled 'Refuse, refuse, refuse:  457 nominations and visas refused'.

The DIBP kindly responded to my tweets on the above article, stating that DIBP approval rates sat at over 90%. 

Mistakenly, I should have cited the 'most-popularly-refused' occupation, and asked for the approval/refusal-rate for that particular occupation.  That 'popularly refused' occupation is none other than Customer Service Manager.  

Private colleges will find it easier to benefit from Australia's booming international student business, under the new student visa system which is set to be introduced mid-2016, notes a report in The AFR. Details of the new system were broadly set out in the Coalition government’s report: Future directions for streamlined visa processing.

Under the proposed new student visa system, foreign students will have to deal with a simpler student visa regulatory environment which will see a reduction of the number of student visa subclasses from eight to just two subclasses.

Rod Camm, CEO of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET), told the Australian Financial Review that Australia’s student visa system is currently so complex that colleges attending education fairs end up spending half their time explaining the visa system instead of talking about the quality of education, noting, “Australia is open for business and visa complexities make it so hard.”

One the key concerns of many is the two tiered risk assessment framework. Under the new system applications are expected to be assessed on a single immigration risk framework: the Simplified Student Visa Framework (SSVF).  It will replace both the Streamlined Visa Processing (SVP) arrangements and Assessment Level (AL) Framework.

The SSVF will essentially rank education providers and countries each year ‘based on the immigration risk outcomes of their international students over the previous 12 month period’. Apparently it is expected to give education providers ‘a strong incentive to recruit genuine students’ and slowly squeeze out the high-risk education providers.

Stupid me! I was trying to get some firm answer through the agent’s gateway, which seems to be designated for purpose of clarifying “complicated policy issues“.

If the matter is not complicated enough, obviously do not dare to ask. An RMA has to be suitably qualified to maintain their registration and have suitable skills (I guess in 'mind reading' the Department’s intentions and policy).  I am not sure if the certificate 3 or 4 in fortune telling or mind reading is suitable, as the Office of the MARA failed to specify this requirement as part of our registration.

The requirement of qualification recognition for specific occupations, and listed countries is set up by PAM 3. 

The records of an estimated one million temporary visa holders, their sponsors and migration agents are expected to be scrutinised by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as part of a broad tax compliance campaign targeted at the industry, according to a recent statement issued by the ATO

RMAs are among those being targeted by the ATO to “detect, and deal with compliance risks within the visa holding population...Data from DIBP will be used in ATO risk detection models to select populations for administrative action relating to tax return integrity, income tax and goods and services tax non-compliance and fraud,” the statement noted.

It says that an analysis of previous data indicates that there is an elevated level of risk relating to non-compliance and fraud associated with this population. Based on those identified risks, the ATO intends to acquire visa information for visas granted in the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2015 and future periods between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2017. This means previously acquired data for the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014 will be refreshed in the new table structure in an effort to take advantage of opportunities with new risk detection models.

The investigations are expected to cover 457 visa-holders and sponsors, students and education providers as well as migration agents.

“These records will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify non-compliance with registration, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations under taxation laws,” the ATO said.

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