Upcoming Immigration Changes 2023

Australia’s skilled visa programs are made up 3 main lists and which are currently being reviewed:

• Short-Term Skilled Occupation List
• Medium and Long-Term Strategic Skills List
• Regional Occupation List

“One of the problems is that we are trying to attract highly skilled people but only being able to offer a short term visa with no permanent residency avenue. This will of course mean that a move to Australia is less attractive and we are more likely to lose that talent to other markets.

A positive outcome would be if they combine the lists and give the option of permanent residency to all skilled workers under the TSS.

The Department of Home Affairs has set 25 November 2023 for implementing changes to the employer-sponsored permanent residency program. Once the ENS reforms have been implemented, short-term Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) 482 visa holders will gain access to permanent residency under the 186 Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) stream of the ENS visa program.

The current skills list can be found here.

The last update to the current Skilled Migration Occupation List was made when the COVID-19 pandemic had just hit. Shortly after Labor Government has increased the number of permanent migration visas available in 2022-23 from 160,000 to 195,000 places.

Read more: Migration Program planning levels

Policy shifts for a new migration system

We need to build a new temporary skilled migration system, to ensure Australia has the skills we need to enhance our economic prosperity and security, by:

• For the first time, creating proper, tripartite, regulated pathways for desperately needed workers, recognising the long-term labour shortages in our essential industries like the care sector, while maintaining the primacy of our relationships with the Pacific as a guiding principle
• Building a mainstream temporary skilled pathway to bring in the core skills we need, using an improved approach to determining which skills we really need – doing away with outdated, inflexible occupation lists. This pathway will include skilled migrants above an increased temporary skilled migration income threshold (TSMIT), to ensure our migration system remains a program for skilled migrants, and wages and conditions of local workers are not undercut
• Developing fast, simple pathways for the specialised, highly skilled workers we need to drive innovation in our economy and to help us build the jobs of the future

We need to reform the way we select those who are offered permanent residence:

• Changing how we select permanent skilled migrants (reforming ‘the points test’) to focus on factors that best contribute to lifting Australia’s productivity, participation, and addressing our ageing population challenges, all while meeting our strategic security imperatives
• Radically reshaping the Global Talent and Business Innovation & Investment programs, and building a new, simple pathway to attract the migrants we need to drive innovation

Making it simple and efficient for employers and migrants

We need a system that improves the experiences of people who interact with the migration system through:

• Simplifying the system (e.g. visa categories, rules, requirements) and improving the user experience of employers and migrants
• After addressing the most acute aspects of the visa backlog, continuing to make the system faster and more efficient through investment in IT, data and people capabilities
• Placing small business on a more level playing field by exploring a switch to monthly employer fees and charges rather than a large up-front investment

We need an evidence-based approach to migration decisions, and better coordination and integration of the labour market, the training and education systems with the migration system. This means:

• Establishing a formal role for Jobs and Skills Australia in defining Australia’s skills needs using evidence, including advice from tripartite mechanisms
• Formalising feedback between the migration system and the training and education system to ensure labour shortages are dealt with in a comprehensive, planned manner
• Once a formal role is established for Jobs and Skills Australia in our migration system, many of the drivers of complexity can be simplified and removed

Delivering outcomes for Australians and migrants post-arrival

Building on the work already underway within the Government, we need to create a new nation building endeavour with State and Territory governments to plan our migration intake, by:

• Aligning investments in infrastructure, service provision and housing including ensuring joint action across governments to address barriers to increasing housing supply
• Establishing a greater role for States and Territories in identifying their migration needs and priorities, especially in our regions

We need to improve the job readiness and outcomes of migrants, including international students, by:

• Providing faster pathways to permanent residence for the skilled migrants and graduates we need
• Recognising Australia’s place as a destination of choice for international students, we need to ensure that all international students are genuinely in Australia to study, including by tightening requirements and by strengthening the quality assurance of education providers
• Reducing time international students spend on bridging visas by easing the path to graduate visas

Our system needs to provide greater protections for all migrants, and therefore local workers, by:

• Reforming the policy settings that drive exploitation, including by increasing mobility to allow temporary migrants to move employers, and enforce their workplace rights, without jeopardising their ability to stay in Australia

We also need to restore the Australian values of integrity, fairness and inclusion at the heart of each stage of the system

We need to improve the integrity of the system, by:

• Improving post-arrival monitoring and enforcement of wages and conditions to detect and prevent exploitation, including by investing in compliance resources and the use of Tax File Numbers by migrant workers
• Strengthening the regulation of registered migration agents

We need to bring fairness back into the system, and address ‘permanent temporariness’, by:

• Ensuring migrants have clarity on their prospects for permanent residence – whether that means staying here or returning home
• Resolving some of the biggest caseloads of permanently temporary people such as New Zealand citizens and TPV/SHEV holders to ensure they can build a career and a family with clarity and a full connection to Australia
• Providing clear pathways to permanent residence for temporary skilled visa holders We need to drive stronger inclusion of all migrants in our economy, by:
• Improving and streamlining skills recognition, to help more migrants, including secondary applicants, enter the labour market at a level commensurate with their qualifications

Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) New Zealand stream changes

Related: Direct pathway to Australian Citizenship for New Zealanders