Australian Immigration Daily News

Businesses in Victoria's Great South Coast region will receive the boost they need with the Morrison Government finalising a Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA) with Warrnambool City Council.

The Great South Coast joins the Northern Territory, South Australia, Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Orana among the first regions in Australia to enter a five-year agreement enabling designated regions to respond to their unique workforce shortages.

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, David Coleman said the Federal Government is working to address the skills needs of regional Australia.

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