Despite work over four-months, 189 submissions and meeting with over 150 stakeholders around the country, The Australian reports that that the changes set out in the ­sc457 review were akin to “maintenance” rather than reform.

Employers have immediately come out complaining of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s rejection of the Reviews recommendation to remove Labour market testing: “It is disappointing employers remain subject to unnecessary ­labour-market testing measures,” said Steve Knott, the head of the Australian Mines and Metals Association. “The labour-market testing was never done in response to an actual economic or policy need — it was implemented by the former government pandering to crass class-war rhetoric.”

Employers have however welcomed the reviews other recommendation and the Ministers announcement that he will be looking closely into the Reviews recommendation to relax the English-language requirements for visa applicants.

The review in essence has given the current program a clean bill of health indicating that there was consensus on the programs fundamental tenets, namely:

• employers have a legitimate need to employ skilled overseas workers;
• that the main rationale for employing such workers is to fill gaps in the Australian workforce;
• that overseas workers should not displace Australians; that Australian workers should be trained;
• and that the employment rights and workplace entitlements of 457 visa holders should be the same as those of Australian workers

The review makes some 22 recommendations including the following:

• Formation of a tripartite ministerial advisory council whose main tasks will be to make recommendations on the occupations that should be included in the department’s 457 occupation list.
• Risk profiling businesses by streaming applications by company turnover namely $4m, $1m and the remainder – whereby greater scrutiny is applied to companies with lower turnover.
• Increasing sponsorship term to 5 years with a simpler process for renewals.
• English Language Requirement should be somewhat eased, from a minimum of 5 across the four competencies (reading, writing, speaking and listening) to an average of 5
• Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold should be retained at the current level until it is reviewed within two years
• current training benchmarks be abolished, and that they be replaced by an annual training contribution that would be payable to government – as an example “Every year sponsors would pay a fixed amount, say, $400, for each 457 visa holder in their employ.”
• Strengthen monitoring sanctions by various means including collaboration with the ATO and FWO.

(Please refer to the Review report for the full list)

Australia had 108,870 primary visa holders in the 457 program in the country at June 30 — less than 1 per cent of the workforce. Despite the relatively small percentage, the sc457 program has been politicised with constant claims of foreign workers taking up Australian jobs and a widespread rorting of the program.

Immigration minister Mr Scott Morrision however insisted that the government's four-member panel found "no evidence to back the widespread rorting claims of the program made by the previous Labor government when they referred [to] 10,000 visa rorters".

The government’s changes are expected to set up a ministerial ­advisory council to balance different views — business, unions and government — but leave the ­immigration minister with the ultimate discretion on what skills can be added to the list of those that can qualify for a 457 visa.

Sources:

http://www.immi.gov.au/pub-res/Documents/reviews/streamlined-responsive-457-programme.pdf

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/coalition-told-to-go-further-on-reform-of-457-visas/story-fn9hm1gu-1227054480358