Australian Immigration Daily News

GRANTS TO SUPPORT VULNERABLE TEMPORARY VISA HOLDERS AND SPECIALIST MIGRANT AND SETTLEMENT NGOS DURING COVID-19

NSW Treasury has sent this information to Migration Alliance this afternoon:

As part of the NSW Government’s stimulus package in response to COVID-19, Multicultural NSW is running a $4 million emergency relief grants program. The program will support vulnerable temporary visa holders and specialist migrant and settlement NGOs across metropolitan and regional NSW. 

The Employer Nomination Scheme (Subclass 186 visa) (‘ENS’) is designed to enable Australian businesses to find skills overseas for the purposes of filling permanent, full time, skilled positions in their business.  This framework works alongside temporary visa solutions such as Labour Agreement facilities, RSMS(The Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (Subclass 187 visa – transitional arrangements) and others, to assist the skills/ labour shortage in Australia

Ove recent months it has become harder for employers to nominate their employees for permanent residency.  The Department of Home Affairs is places greater scrutiny on certain applications depending on the industry, the number of years the business has been operating and the number of employees is being employed by the business

When applying for ENS, it is important to consider the following factors:

Department of Home Affairs has made temporary work arrangements for certain industry sectors.  The purpose is to assist industries which are most impacted by COVID19.

Below are some of the concessions which are available:

Agriculture –

Australia has strict border measures in place to protect the health of the Australian community. As of July 2020, very limited flights are currently available to and from Australia and visa holders as well as citizens may not be able to travel at this time.

All travellers arriving in Australia, including Australian citizens, are subject to mandatory quarantine for 14 days at a designated facility, such as a hotel, in their port of arrival. By way of update you may be required to pay for the costs of your quarantine. To find out more about quarantine requirements, contact the relevant state or territory government health department.

Travel restrictions - Continued

Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Amendment Rules (No. 5) 2020 released days ago confirming that the payment may be extended up to December 2020.

As per the explanatory statement the initial package was introduced to assist businesses and employees up until September 2020. 

The new Legislative instrument - Subsection 7(1) of the Act provides that the rules may make provision for and in relation to, one or more kinds of payments by the Commonwealth to an entity in respect of a time that occurs during the prescribed period (the period between 1 March 2020 and 31 December 2020), the establishment of a scheme providing for matters relating to one or more of those payments, and matters relating to such a scheme. Any payments must relate to the prescribed period – the period from 1 March 2020 to 31 December 2020.