Australian Immigration Daily News

The Global Talent Independent program, or GTI, represents a new way of approaching highly skilled immigration to Australia.

This year, we will be reducing our annual permanent migration cap from 190,000 to 160,000. But within that cap, we will be sharpening the emphasis on highly skilled immigration. The Global Talent Independent programme has been allocated up to 5,000 places within our annual programme. Over time, it has the potential to have a transformative impact on the Australian economy. Let’s be clear: we have very big ambitions for the GTI. The GTI has one key goal: 

• To help build our future prosperity, by attracting to Australia the world’s most highly skilled  people in the world’s highest growth industries  

Through the program we will seek out and recruit highly skilled and talented individuals from around the globe - offering them a streamlined, priority visa pathway to work and live permanently in Australia. We are being deliberately aggressive in this policy area, and will be investing around $13 million over the next three years on its execution.

We want people from the best universities and the most successful companies. We want people with entrepreneurial ideas and deep skill sets, who can drive innovation and create local jobs. When highly skilled migrants enter Australian companies, they typically generate ideas that lead to the employment of more Australians. I saw this first hand when I was chairman of ninemsn, the joint venture between Nine and Microsoft. We would often have Microsoft executives from the US suggest new initiatives in the business, and we would then employ more Australians to make those initiatives happen.

At its most simple level, that is how highly skilled migrants add value to the Australian economy. Applicants will be eligible to be considered for permanent residency under the GTI if they meet two key criteria:

 They are likely to earn more than $149,000 per year in Australia; and 

 They are highly skilled in one of seven key industry sectors 

The benchmark of $149,000 ensures that the program targets truly high-skilled individuals - with an ability to command higher wages in a competitive international field. This benchmark aligns with the Fair Work high income threshold, which is updated annually.

Source: Coleman-Speech-on-Skilled-Migration-and-the-Global-Talent-Independent-Program.pdf