Minister of Religion Labour Agreement

Visa

You can sponsor skilled overseas workers on these visas:

• Temporary Skill Shortage visa (subclass 482)
• Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186) 

The decision on which visa is appropriate will be made based on the religious organisation’s business case.

 TSMIT in Labour Agreements will be raised to $70,000 pa as of 1 July 2023.

Any concession to the TSMIT that exists in a Labour Agreement will continue at the current proportion ie, if there is a 10% concession on the $53,900 current TSMIT, there will be a 10% concession on the $70,000 level (eg $7000) from 1 July 2023.

The new Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement will not be affected.

Your organisation

As the requesting organisation, you must be defined as a ‘religious organisation’ in the Migration Regulations. This requires that:

• your activities reflect your organisation is founded on the promotion of a religious object
• members of your religion show through their beliefs and practices they:
  • believe in a supernatural being, thing or principle
  • accept the canons of conduct that give effect to that belief, but that do not offend against the ordinary laws
• meet the requirements of section 50–50 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997
• your organisation’s income must be exempt from income tax under section 50–1 of that Act

You must also show evidence of your organisation’s charitable status.

You must also identify the people you wish to sponsor at the time you make a request for the Minister of Religion Industry Labour Agreement. We cannot process your industry labour agreement if there are any outstanding immigration issues for your organisation or people you wish to sponsor, such as un-finalised visa applications or merits review proceedings.

Occupation

Religious organisations can only nominate for the following Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) positions:

• skill level 1 occupation of Minister of Religion as defined by ANZSCO 272211. This person must have a senior leadership role in your organisation, or
• skill level 4 occupation of Religious Assistant as defined by ANZSCO 451816

We will consider the size of your organisation and workforce if you wish to nominate more than one skilled overseas worker.

English language

Skilled overseas workers must meet the English language requirements of the short-term stream of the Temporary Skill Shortage visa (subclass 482). We may allow different English language requirements if:

• they are working in a cloistered or monastic environment, or
• they can demonstrate completion of at least five years of full-time study in a secondary education institution or higher education institution, where the instruction was delivered in English.

If the skilled overseas worker will be sponsored under the Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186), they may be assessed as holding sufficient English language proficiency through the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). On this test, they must have an overall test score of at least 5.0, with a score of at least 4.5 in each of the four test components, or equivalent.

Skills, qualifications and experience

Ministers of Religion must have:

• been ‘ordained’ or have ‘professed to a religious life’ as a minister of religion (or equivalent accreditation process within the faith tradition) and
• hold a minimum qualifications equivalent to a relevant Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) bachelor degree

or

• completed at least 5 years of relevant structured training or instruction, noting that experience does not meet this criterion.

Religious Assistants must have:

• the relevant qualifications equivalent to a relevant AQF Certificate II or III (ANZSCO Skill Level 4) or
• at least 2 years of relevant experience as a substitute for the formal qualification listed above.