Apply now: General Skilled Migration Assessment

By
Ben Winsor

5 MAY 2017

The government is remaining tight-lipped on the finer details of a new temporary parent visa announced yesterday, which will be officially outlined in Tuesday’s Budget.

But SBS World News understands the new temporary visa - which allows migrant parents to stay in Australia for up to 10 years, and costs up to $20,000 - will sit alongside current visa options, rather than replace them.

There had been concern among applicants and migration agents that the temporary visa would replace the two permanent migration options – the government currently offers a $5,935 visa with a 30-year wait period and another for over $47,000 with a three-year wait period.

But while those options will remain, they could potentially see significant price rises in next week’s Budget, a measure recommended by the Productivity Commission last year.

SBS World News also understands that there will be no English language requirement for the new temporary visa, mainly used by elderly parents.

While visa-holders will not have working rights, there will be limited study options as well as multiple re-entry rights.

SBS World News understands there will be no bond payable for obtaining the visa, an idea floated in a government discussion paper. 

Assistant Immigration Minister Alex Hawke yesterday told SBS World News the government was planning to offer 15,000 temporary parent visas each year.

Healthcare costs for migrant parents will be shouldered by their children under the plan, with sponsors legally required to pay for private health insurance and act as guarantor on any extra healthcare costs.

The visa will cost $5,000 for a three-year visa and $10,000 for a five-year visa, with a single renewal possible for the five-year option - delivering up to $75 million in government revenue annually.

It's prompted criticism of revenue-raising off the back of immigrant families.

In previous years the government has been accused of revenue raising off foreign spouses, with partnership visas seeing significant price hikes in 2014 and 2015.

It is expected that the temporary visa option will decrease waiting lists for permanent visas, with roughly 8,600 permanent visas granted each year.

Assistant Minister Hawke said the program could also lead to reduced pressure on childcare facilities in Australia, with migrant grandparents taking on carer responsibilities.

Only certain occupations are approved for use under Australia’s permanent and temporary skilled visa programmes. These occupations are listed in a legislative instrument that contains two schedules or ‘occupation lists’ that apply to different visa programmes.

On 19 April 2017, the

• Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) will replace the previous ‘Skilled Occupation List’ (SOL) and is available in Schedule 1 of the relevant legislative instrument
• Short-term Skilled Occupation List (STSOL) will replace the previous ‘Consolidated Sponsored Occupation List’ (CSOL) and is available in Schedule 2 of the relevant legislative instrument.

The Subclass 457 Visa will be abolished and replaced with the Temporary Skill Shortage Visa. The new visa will include mandatory criminal checks and tighter English language requirements.

Implementation of the new visa will begin immediately, with full implementation to be completed by March 2018. 

The Government will announce further measures to strengthen the integrity of Australia’s migration programme and visa systems in the near future. This could have an impact on the entire General Skilled Migration program, and changes made with such short notice are certainly indicative of things to come. Acting on a migration application under current legislation is certainly advisable sooner rather than later.

The 457 Visa will be replaced with the new Temporary Skill Shortage Visa programme will comprise two streams – Short Term and Medium Term – and will be underpinned by more focused occupation lists that are responsive to genuine skill needs and regional variations across Australia.

Short term visas will be issued for two years, while medium term visas will be issued only for more critical skills shortages and for up to four years.

Both streams will include mandatory labour market testing with limited exemptions; a new non-discriminatory workforce test; mandatory criminal history checks; a market salary rate assessment and a new two-year work experience requirement.

Additionally there will be tightened English language requirements for the Medium Term Stream.

The new visa will also include a strengthened training obligation for employers sponsoring foreign skilled workers to provide enhanced training outcomes for Australians in high-need industries and occupations. 

These changes will give Australian job seekers more opportunity to find work while finding the right balance so businesses can prosper by acquiring the expertise they need.

Here’s a list of 8 most important visa developments in Australia in 2016

SBS Hindi has regularly brought you up-to-date with information regarding Australian visas.

In 2016, significant changes were introduced to several types of Australian visas. New government policies also led to introduction of new visas whereas several other measures and changes took place which might have affected you.

Here’s a list of 8 most important visa developments in Australia in 2016:

Student visas streamlined

Australia's simplified student visa framework (SSVF) came into effect from July 1 2016.

The following changes came into effect from 1st July 2016:

1. international students will apply for a single Student visa (subclass 500), regardless of their chosen course of study
2. student guardians will apply for the new Student Guardian visa (subclass 590)
3. all students and student guardians will generally be required to lodge their visa application online by creating an account in ImmiAccount.

Click here for more details.

New work visas introduced

On 19th November 2016, four new work visas were introduced by the Australian government.

The four new visa sub classes are:

1. Subclass 400 Temporary Work (Short Stay Specialist) visa
2. Subclass 403 Temporary Work (International Relations) visa
3. Subclass 407 Training visa
4. Subclass 408 Temporary Activity visa.

The new framework is designed to make applying for a temporary visa easier. It aims reduce red tape for business, industry and individuals by removing sponsorship and nomination requirements for specific short stay activities.

Click here for details.

New entrepreneur visa introduced

To encourage entrepreneurship and to retain the best talent, Australian government introduced a new entrepreneur visa in September 2016.

This new visa allows entrepreneurs with $200,000 in funding from specified third party to develop and commercialise their innovative ideas in Australia.

This visa also provides a pathway to permanent residency in Australia. Click here for more details.

Visa applications fast-tracked for Indian citizens

From 5 December 2016, Indian applicants applying for a Subclass 600 Visitor visa, both the Tourist and Business Streams, at selected Australian Visa Application Centres (AVACs) in India can access an optional Priority Service.

This has been made available at Australian Visa Application Centres in New Delhi, Mumbai North, Mumbai South, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Chandigarh, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Pune and Jalandhar.

This optional Priority Service can be availed for an additional fee of AUD 1000 (INR 53,100). 

Click here for more details.

New temporary parent visa announced

Australian Government in September this year announced new temporary parent visa. They kick started community consultations on developing the legislation for a new five-year temporary sponsored parent visa and invited submissions.

This new visa will be in place by July 2017.

Click here for more details.

Stay cut for 457 visas

In November 2016, Australian government announced that foreign workers on a 457 visa will only be able to stay in Australia for 60 days after their employment ends instead of 90, under changes by the federal government.

Government is also considering to cut the list of occupations which allows an employer to bring foreign workers to Australia.

For more details, click here.

Extra points for students who pursue STEM

As part of the Government’s policy to attract top level immigrants with skills in science, technology, maths, engineering and ICT, government in September 2016 announced important changes to points test system.

Five additional points will now be available to graduates from Australian institutions with doctorate level and masters by research qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and information and communication technology fields.

These are the 21 education fields mentioned by Department of Immigration and Border Protection for which international students will be eligible for 5 additional points towards their point test.

For more details, click here.

Automatic visa nomination for PhD graduates

International students who complete their PhD from Canberra institutions will automatically qualify for ACT’s skilled migrant visa from end of this year.

More details available here.

Source: sbs.com.au

We took a deeper look at the government's facts and figures.

Australia’s 457 Temporary Worker visa program is on the lips of lawmakers again as both the government and the opposition promise to tighten eligibility requirements for businesses and applicants under the scheme.

According to a departmental report issued in June 2016, there are almost 95,000 temporary skilled migrants in Australia under the program.

A total of 55 per cent of applications were granted to "professionals", with 23 per cent granted to technical and trade workers and 17 per cent granted to managers.

We dived a little deeper into that report to see where those workers were coming from, where they were going, what jobs they were doing and how much they were getting paid.

This is what we found:

Workers appear to be well paid, on average

The report details average pay by sector and by location. The total average remuneration (which includes superannuation) for workers under the program is $94,200.

Hospitality workers are paid, on average, $58,800 per year.

While the figures aren’t calculated in the same way, that roughly lines up with the median hospitality wage provided by livesalary.com.au - $55,000 as a base salary and $60,225 in total remuneration.

The highest paid in the 457 program are those in the mining and finance/insurance industries.

Visa holders working in mining are paid an average of $218,200 and those in finance or insurance are paid an average of $128,800.

Doctor Joanna Howe, an expert in 457 visas at the University of Adelaide, told SBS that the high wages weren't surprising. 

“The data that you’ve found probably does reflect that the 457 visa program is a skilled migration program," she said. “You’re not going to see the same exploitation that you see in the international student and working holiday visa programs.”

Laws mandate that employers pay 457 visa holders comparable wages to those who are employed locally, and there's a minimum salary of $53,000 if a business wants to use the visa.

There were, however, other problems with the 457 visa system, experts said, including how the relationship of dependency between visa holder and employer can lead to exploitation, and the compilation of the Consolidated Sponsored Occupation List itself.

ICT, professional, scientific and technical skills are in high demand

India and the UK are the highest suppliers of temporary workers

India, the UK, China and the USA make up more than half of the source countries.

NSW is the most popular destination

New South Wales was, by far, the most popular destination for 457 visa holders, reflecting both the size of the state and the strength of its economy.

Source: sbs.com.au

The future prosperity of Australia’s labour market hinges on the participation of immigrants and refugees. Meet the entrepreneurs and start-ups upskilling these groups.

Contrary to the views being espoused in the lead up to the election, the future prosperity of Australia’s labour market hinges on the participation of immigrants and refugees.

Economic sociologist and Monash University ​lecturer, E​rin Watson-Lynn, tells SBS that migrants and refugees drive “The Three Ps” of economic growth: “population, participation and productivity”.

More than a quarter of Australia’s population was born overseas, and 45 per cent of the entire population has at least one parent born overseas, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Australian migrants and refugees are more likely to be below the age of 40, “meaning they are prime working age,” says Erin. But “labour market outcomes for refugees are worse than for other immigrants, including lower labour force participation rates and higher unemployment rates.”

Refugees as entrepreneurs

“Refugees are entrepreneurial at a rate higher than other immigrant groups,” according to one report. These entrepreneurs include Australian neuroscientist-turned-property-investor-turned-publisher-turned-venture capitalist, Shelli Trung, who was born in a detention centre in Hong Kong and moved to Sydney at the age of four.

“Being a refugee and former migrant, I think that has made me a little bit more pro risk,” says Shelli. “I feel I could have been in worse situations. My parents left their home on a boat to Australia not speaking a word of English. That boat could easily have capsized, but my parents made the journey and survived.

"I don't see what they did as as a risk. It makes you stronger,” she says.

Money was always tight in the Trung family growing up, with both parents working long hours as labourers. Often Shelli’s mother, having begun her day at three or four in the morning, would return from work in the evenings and run a sewing business from her garage.

“The only time I had with my parents was working over the sewing machine,” she says. “I ended up having a really serious work ethic. I work for fun.”

Simon*, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee, co-developed an app called SettleIn, which allows newly arrived refugees to communicate with case workers, share paperwork and documentation, and help plan and set goals to make the “settling in” process less stressful.

He and his team of seven - including Alice Brennan, a British aid worker specialising in psycho-social care for refugees, and Remi Duracher, a volunteer and co-founder of StartupSocial - conceived the idea at the inaugural TechFugees Australia Hackathon in November last year. Simon, Alice and Remi were subsequently accepted into an incubator program at Pollenizer to help get their start-up underway.

Simon tells SBS he helped to develop the app because he wanted to simplify the transition period for other newly-arrived refugees in Australia.

“I want people to learn from my experience,” he says. “If this app had existed [when I arrived], it would have helped me. It would have saved a great amount of time and money.”

Simon's engineering studies were “interrupted by war” in 2015 when he was forced to flee Syria. He has been living in Australia for seven months and has been accepted to complete his studies at Western Sydney University on a scholarship.

Refugees driving the economy

The cost-benefit of upskilling Australian refugees and migrants is not simply a financial incentive, but an economic imperative according to Erin Watson-Lynn.

“Our current birth rate simply does not meet the required replacement ​rate. It places enormous strain on the public health system, ​because of an increased dependency ratio,” she says.

“There is actually a risk if we don’t bring in migrants. ​The dependency ratio is increasing dramatically​ because of the ageing population; ​we have to be able to replace these people in the labo​u​r market; we have ​to have taxpayers to support the​​ standard of living ​we currently enjoy in this country. ​​That is what the risk comes down to.”

The Australian government spends $250 billion a year on social disadvantage, according to The Centre for Social Impact.

“Even I can tell you that’s the worst return on anyone’s investment,” says Innovation Consultant and former public servant Anne-Marie Elias.

There is actually a risk if we don’t bring in migrants. 

Anne-Marie has been working at Sydney co-working space Fishburners, forming partnerships with the private sector, not-for-profits and refugee communities, with the goal of providing upwards mobility for the country’s most vulnerable.

Though progress may be slow, there are signs that the private sector is starting to respond to incentives posed by engagement with Australia’s refugee, immigrant and cultural communities.

Merivale recently employed a group of Tibetan refugees to work in the kitchens and train as chefs at their newly renovated Newport Arms Resort, via a newly formed recruitment agency Bright Hospitality, a start-up co-founded by Tim Davies, targeting refugee communities. 

Davies and CEO Sharon Flynn tells SBS it has partnered with major brands, including Merivale, Miss Chu and the Q Station, and provides formal training courses at Wesley Mission through which participants are then placed in employment.

“The training opportunities and placements into employment enables refugees to practise their English skills in a learning environment,” says Sharon.

If you're the first to reach out and say 'we’re going to find jobs and back your business and speak your language and help you integrate', I think that would be a tremendous advantage and they will have a lead on competitors.

Sonam Wangmo, a translator and facilitator at the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors, says that language, social isolation and guilt are the three major obstacles refugees must overcome to assimilate into Australian society.

For many refugees there is a “cultural expectation” of stoicism from their own community; that they are lucky to be given asylum and they should accept their lot in life, even if it means living in poverty and social alienation.

Sonam credits refugee employment programs like Bright Hospitality with having an outsized impact on earning potential and cultural integration. 

Google app strategist Michael Ascharsobi says it’s important to note that there are many members of Australia’s refugee community who “are either already skilled or have a strong drive to acquire new skills”.

“We can build tech to empower refugees to identify and complete the requirements needed for their skills to be recognised faster, ultimately helping the skills shortage,” he says.

“We can also provide opportunities to those who are eager to learn new skills, developing a generation of skilled professionals.”

And if economic imperatives aren’t enough, Alan Jones, angel investor at Blue Chilli Group, says there’s money to be made for early adopters working with marginalised communities. “If you're the first into these marginalised communities - a provider of internet or financial services, a retailer or a bank - the first to reach out and say 'we’re going to find jobs and back your business and speak your language and help you integrate', I think that would be a tremendous advantage and they will have a lead on competitors.” 

*Simon's surname has been withheld to protect his family who remain in Syria.

Source: sbs.com.au

SBS spoke with five professional migration agents to get their tips and advice on how to make the partnership visa application process less stressful.

Every year, tens of thousands of Australians jointly lodge visa applications with their foreign partners.

It can be a stressful time. The complexity of the paperwork and the lengthy processing times – not to mention the costs – can put a lot of pressure on relationships.

Here are nine things you need to know to give your application, and your relationship, the best chance of success:

1 - It's expensive

At almost $7,000, Australian partnership visas are among the most expensive in the world.

We wish we could tell you there was a good reason for that, but the Immigration Minister himself struggled to justify the cost to us.

“It has gone up a lot, particularly in the last three-to-four years,” Joy Hay from True Blue Migration in Melbourne tells SBS.

“It’s been called the ‘love tax’, because it is a fee that people are willing to pay to stay with their partner,” she says.

Peter Michalopoulos, director of Ethos Migration in Melbourne, says the price can often come as a shock to people, but the news only gets worse.

“A professionally represented Partner visa application would cost you in excess of $10,000,” he says.

“It’s not just the application fee, you also have to factor in health examinations, police checks in Australia and any countries you’ve lived in for more than 12 months in the last 10 years – which can sometimes be tricky.

“Then there are migration agent or lawyer’s fees, which would be about $3,000 to $5,000 for a partner visa application.

“If you’re going to invest that amount of money, it’s important that it’s done right the first time, minor mistakes can become very costly down the track.”

2 – It can take more than a year

The Department of Immigration doesn’t technically cap partnership visas – they’re barred from doing so by legislation – but they do have a ‘planning level’, which essentially limits the number of applications which are processed each year.

The ‘planning level’ is currently 47,825 visas per year, but roughly 70,000 applications currently sit with the department.

That’s partly why wait times have blown out to 12-to-18 months.

It can be an anxious wait – you can expect to hear little or nothing from the department while your application sits in line.

Joy Hay tells us that onshore applications tend to take longer, with offshore or prospective marriage visas taking about 12 months to process.  

Given the lengthy wait times, supporting documents have been known to expire before applications are even looked at.

“Health and police checks are only valid for 12 months, so we advise clients to do it eight-or-12 months after the initial application,” Hay says.

3 – You don’t have to be together for 12 months if you’re married

There are two paths to recognition through the partnership visa program – the de facto path and the married path.

While de facto visas require a 12-month relationship, the married path has no time requirement.

Both paths still require evidence of a genuine, ongoing relationship.

SBS confirmed with the department that same-sex couples are not eligible for the married path, even if they are married overseas.

However, the 12-month de facto wait period does not apply if a couple is registered with a federally recognised state or territory relationships register.

Relationships registries operate in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. 

Want more information?

This guide is tailored to partnership visas, but you can find an even more comprehensive guide to Australian visa applications here

https://www.scribd.com/document/332610857/Partnership-Visa-Booklet#download&from_embed

Source: sbs.com.au

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