Australian Immigration Daily News

Manner for an approved family sponsor to give information to Immigration when certain events occur

5  Manner to provide information to Immigration

For the purposes of paragraph 2.87CD(1)(b), the specified manner in which an approved family sponsor is to give details to Immigration of events mentioned in subregulation 2.87CD(2), is through the sponsor’s online ImmiAccount.

State Government of Victoria is seeking submissions in relation to its composition of the State Skilled Occupation List.  The initial deadline to provide submissions by 18 March has now been extended to 7 April 2019.

By way of background the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR), through the Skilled and Business Migration Program, is responsible for providing visa nomination to highly skilled and employable migrants to live and work in Victoria permanently (for the Skilled Nominated subclass 190 visa) or on a provisional basis (for the Skilled Regional subclass 489 (Provisional) visa).

In response to the ever-growing demand for migration to regional areas as well as to address skills shortages across Victoria, the State government has opened consultation process with relevant stakeholders.

Australian Federal government delivered the budget on Tuesday night.  The budget highlights several important elements relevant to immigration which are summarised for ease of reference.

Investment into VET Sector

In 2018, there were 7.3 million migrants living in Australia. This was 29% of the population that were born overseas. One year earlier, in 2017, there were 7.1 million people born overseas.

Every single country from around the world was represented in Australia's population in 2018. People born in:

England (992,000) continue to be the largest group of overseas-born living in Australia. However, this has dropped from a peak of just over a million (1,013,000 people) in 2013

China (651,000) remained in second place from 2017 with strong growth since 2002

India (592,000) moved into third place dropping the New Zealand born (568,000) down to fourth place

Australia (17.7 million) had increased 188,000 during the year.

Source: ABS-Migration-Australia-2017-18.pdf

Recommendations

Recommendation 1
2.95 The committee recommends that the Australian Government continue to
monitor the trajectory of visa applications and grants under the Temporary
Skills Shortage (Subclass 482) visa over the next six months, with a view to
making any necessary adjustments to the overall settings for this visa subclass
in 2020.

Recommendation 2
2.100 The committee recommends that the Australian Government increase the
Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) to a minimum of at
least $62,000, and mandate that the rate of the TSMIT be indexed annually in
line with the average full-time wage.