Readers of the Migration Alliance Website will recall that we posted an article on 20 March of this year, following reports in the media indicating that the government of Western Australia had apparently “frozen” the entire Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme in Perth.
This “freeze” was apparently made to implement a campaign promise that was made by Mark McGowan, who was elected as Premier of Western Australia on 11 March 2017.
Our Migration Alliance colleague Ross Ahmadzi reported in an article that was posted on 26 June 2017 that Prime Minister Turnbull has now written to Premier Magowan to confirm that the Federal Government has agreed to remove the Perth region from the RSMS visa programme.
The Western Australian government’s Website indicates that applications for the Perth region have indeed been frozen since 13 March 2017.
Our review indicates that the Legislative Instrument that designated the whole of Western Australia as a “regional area” for the purposes of the RSMS programme – IMMI 16/045 – has not yet been amended or revoked.
It would thus appear that the reported actions of the Western Australian government to freeze the RSMS programme in the Perth region , and the reported correspondence from Prime Minister Turnbull indicating that the Federal Government would “authorize” such a freeze may very possibly be “beyond power” (in legal terms “ultra vires”).
The Migration Alliance has received an enquiry from a migration agent whose practice is located in Western Australia asking whether there are any possible legal remedies to address this situation.
Migration Alliance is continuing to review this situation. Our preliminary views are that if the relevant legislative instrument has not been revoked or amended (as we currently believe to be the case) then it is possible that there might well be avenues for this to be dealt with.
We request that migration agents who are concerned about this situation and/or who have clients who are affected by this freeze contact Migration Alliance at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
We will be posting further updates about this issue as developments warrant.