On the 14th October, the Australian government released a joint media statement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Minister for Industry Ian McFarlane and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison. The media release on the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection’s website entitles the release: “Reforming skilled migration to improve Australia’s competitiveness” The release deals with three main issues:

1. An overview of what we can expect in changes to the 457 programme
2. An overview of what we can expect in changes to the SIV programme, and rough time frames, and
3. The high-level announcement of the Premium Investor Visa or ‘PIV’, and the dates of commencement

An overview of what we can expect in changes to the 457 programme

On the 10th September this year, Global Enterprises Group blogged regarding the 457 visa review report recommendations being released (see the full report recommendations here). Out of 22 strong recommendations, only 4 have been announced in this media statement as being accepted by the government. The media release has NOT released specifics on how a number of the 457 recommendations will be implemented, however the following two changes are clear:

• increasing the sponsorship approval period from 12 to 18 months for start-up businesses, to give start-ups more time to make their businesses sustainable; and
• retaining the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) at $53 900, ahead of a review within the next two years

These changes were also announced in the media release, however specifics of implementation are not yet known:

• streamlining the processing of sponsorship, nomination and visa applications to reward low risk applicants and refocus compliance and monitoring activities on high risk applicants
• providing greater flexibility in relation to English language testing and skill requirements for 457 applicants, to ensure that the standards required are appropriate for the industries and occupations being sought

The current government is taking strong steps to simplify and streamline the 457 programme, and Global Enterprises Group applauds such a move. The de-indexation of the TSMIT in particular is a good move, with indexation causing many of the jobs that would otherwise be sponsorable under the 457 to be out of reach. Contrary to common belief, the TSMIT being indexed often means an Australian business has to pay the foreigner more than the Australian in order to meet requirements. Other recommendations by the panel such as abolishing labour market testing, changes to training benchmarks and enhanced pathways to permanent residency have bot (as yet) been taken up by the government. Global Enterprises Group will update our clients as soon as specifics have been released by the government on English language requirements changes and the ‘streamlining’ of ‘low-risk’ applications.