Australian Immigration Daily News

Alan Tudge MP, Acting Immigration Minister, spoke on 4 April 2020 and stated as follows:

Now having outlined those principles, let me go through some of the major visa classes and the specific measures which are applied to those.

I'll start with visitor visa holders. These are our international tourists. Now there's 203,000 international visitors in Australia, and they're typically on visas which last anywhere up to three months. International tourists should return home to their home country as quickly as possible is our message. Particularly for those who don't have family support in Australia. This message was stated yesterday very clearly by the Prime Minister, I'll reiterate that point today. That international tourists should return home, particularly if they don't have family support in Australia. Now thousands I know are already doing this, I see that in the data and others should be following their lead.

In relation to international students. We've got almost 600,000 international students in Australia. Many studying in the higher education and vocational education sectors. And these people have been a terrific contributor to our tertiary sector and our economy and they support hundreds of thousands of jobs by being here. Now we're saying to international students that we encourage you to rely on your family support, on your part time work where that is available, and on your own savings to help sustain yourself while you're in Australia. We know that as part of your visa application, you're required to demonstrate that certainly in your first year of being a student that you can support yourself. So our expectation is absolutely that. That if you're a first year student that you're able to support yourself, but if you are unable to support yourself then you might need to consider other arrangements. In relation to second and subsequent year students, as I said we ask you to lean on your families for their support, going into your own savings to support yourself if you need that. In addition, we will allow you to access the superannuation which you may have accumulated here in Australia as well through the part time work which you are able to do while you are here. So that's the message in relation to international students. They have been a terrific contributor to Australia, supporting Australian jobs. We want them to stay here where they can support themselves. We're providing additional flexibility for them to support themselves and I'll also point out that we're continuing to work with the international education sector on future arrangements as well.

I'll get to New Zealanders now who are on what's called a 444 visa. Now as probably people know, New Zealanders and Australians have reciprocal arrangements whereby New Zealanders can come to Australia and stay in Australia and work in Australia just like Australians can go to New Zealand, stay in New Zealand and work in New Zealand. About half of the 600,000 or so New Zealanders who are in the country won't have access however to the JobSeeker payments. They will have access to the JobKeeper payments. So we're not proposing to change those arrangements. So if there is a New Zealander in the country who is unable to access those JobSeeker payments, then again we ask them to consider returning to New Zealand where they will be able to get their support that they need.

I'll go to temporary skilled visa holders now. Now there's about 139,000 temporary skilled visa holders in Australia. These are people who were invited and sponsored into Australia to fill really valuable skills shortages here in this country. And they're typically on either a two-year visa or a four-year visa. Now we know though that those businesses who are sponsoring those people many of the are doing it very tough. They've had to stand down people or lay off people and that includes some of these foreign nationals on temporary skilled visas. We're making a distinction here in terms of our measures between those who have been laid off and those who have been stood down. For the individuals who have been stood down or had their hours reduced by their business owner, by their business sponsor, their visa will remain valid. It's an important point because clearly it's an indication from the business owner that they would like that person to be there and be part of the rebuild once we're post the corona crisis. So I'll repeat that, if they've been stood down or they've had their hours reduced, their visa will remain valid. They can stay in the country and we will give them access to up to $10,000 of their superannuation. If you've been here for a couple of years already working, no doubt you would have at least that amount of money in your superannuation account. For those who have been laid off, the normal arrangements are going to apply. That is that you will have 60 days to seek another business to sponsor you in the country, but if you do not the usual arrangements will apply where you'll have to depart the country. That's for those who have been laid off.

Let me come now to working holiday makers, the backpackers in Australia. And we have about 118,000 people in Australia on what is colloquially known as backpacker visas, whereby people can come into the country, they can work for limited periods of time as well as travel the country. The changes we are making here relates only to the critical sectors of health, aged care, disability care, agriculture and food processing and child care. In relation to those critical areas, we are making changes to allow those people to work longer in those industries. Typically, they will have only the rights to work for six months for any one employer. However, the changes we are announcing today, is that if you are working in one of those critical industries where we know we need your skills, you will be able to work longer than that six-month duration. Furthermore, when your visa expires after one year, if you have been working or are working in those critical industries we will extend you visa for a further year and subsequent years should that be the case if you're already in your second year of your visa.

In addition to that, myself along with David Littleproud and the Deputy Prime Minister have announced this morning that we will also be extending the Seasonal Workers Programme and the Pacific Labour Scheme. We will extend the rights of those people already in the country for up to an additional 12 months. These are people, relatively small numbers, who have come from Pacific Islands, who are working on the farms doing those critical jobs. We will be extending their ability to stay in the country for up to 12 months.

Source: Alan-Tudge-Press-conference-Sat-4-April-2020.pdf