The AFR report which sent shock waves amongst overseas accounting students in particular has forced DIBP to come out and categorically declare that Accounting will remain on the skills list. If it wasn’t for the AFR article which declared that DIBP had dropped accounting from the list, the question of the tenability of the occupation as a migration pathway would have remained fodder for the rumour mill.

The Australian Financial Review is perhaps one of Australia's most prestigious and respected newspapers with incisive reports grounded on credible sources - most of the time, at least. It remains unclear what went wrong in its story earlier this week that Accounting has been dropped from the skills list. The paper has now removed the story, and replaced it with an article entitled, ‘Accounting to remain on skilled migration list”. No explanation was provided for the earlier article, the reason for its publication and subsequent removal.

The articled however has forced the government, which has been reticent on the issue despite constant talk in the industry of the tenability of the occupation remaining on the list to finally deliver a strong statement as follows:

“Some of our blog readers may have seen today’s Australian Financial Review, which has incorrectly reported that the department has dropped accounting from its list of skilled occupations in demand for 2015.

“There are no plans to remove this occupation from the Skilled Occupation List (SOL) for the 2015 programme year. The Office of the Chief Economist in the Department of Industry conducts analysis each year on the composition of the SOL. The next advice is expected in March 2015 after the completion of extensive labour market analysis and a public consultation process.

“This year, the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (whose functions have been incorporated into the Department of Industry) released a detailed analysis of accountants and concluded that they should continue to be included on the SOL.”