Australian Immigration Daily News

Australian Borderforce has made a number of changes to temporary visa holder arrangements during the coronavirus crisis in order to protect the health of the community.

It should be noted that employers are still required to abide by all relevant Australian workplace laws. Overseas workers, including international students, have the same rights under Australian workplace law as all other employees.

Below are some of the industry sectors where COVID 19 changes have been implemented:

As Australia continues to navigate through COVID19 crisis, travel restrictions are being reviewed on a continuous basis to ensure they are in line with the recommended measures put in by the Department of Health.

As of 1 August 2020, the following criteria applies for travel exemptions including additional exemptions for individuals such as school students:

Exempt categories

• Experience gained as part of a Masters and/or PhD may be considered as work experience for relevant occupations, such as medical and research occupations.
• Experience gained whilst studying, through a formal arrangement (for example, a clinical/industry placement, internship or apprenticeship) that is undertaken as part of a CRICOS registered course of study, may be considered as work experience where it is relevant to the occupation. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • for medical practitioners, experience gained through internships or the final year medical training, including periods of clinical placements; and.
  • the internship component of the Professional Year Program.
• Experience gained whilst studying, through a formal arrangement (for example, a clinical/industry placement, internship or apprenticeship) outside of a CRICOS registered course of study, must be undertaken at the skill level of the relevant occupation to be considered as work experience.

Accordingly, a combination of "employment" and "internship" will meet the two year work requirement assuming this was performed at the right skill level which I understand is the case here.

There has been some ambiguity in relation to how many hours is full time work for the purposes of ENS.

Source: Benchmark 

Australia's biosecurity system is a critically important national asset. It protects Australia's diverse and pristine natural wonders, and underpins agricultural production and export. As such, it is critical that vigilance is maintained in protecting Australia from an ever-increasing number of pests and diseases that threaten an array of industries, and Australia's unique flora and fauna.

Despite extensive information campaigns, and a simple process where incoming passengers and crew can easily declare goods for assessment by biosecurity officers, hundreds of undeclared high risk items are detected every year.

The risk to Australia must be mitigated. The proposed measures included in this bill will highlight to incoming travellers how serious biosecurity is and would introduce sensible and important changes to help protect Australia from biosecurity risks.