News: Australian immigration law reforms

February 23 2009

Australia has recently introduced reforms to immigration law.  Here, Sammy Naghi explains the significance of the new rules for emigrants.

The Australian Government has announced changes from 1 January 2009 to ensure that the Skilled Migration Program is driven by the requirements of industry and targets skills in critical need across a number of sectors.
There were concerns that the previous criteria were not delivering the right skills to the right areas and there was an increasing use of the temporary skilled migration program (Subclass 457 visa) by employers to meet their needs.
The existing 133,500 planning target will remain as a ceiling, with the actual number of visas granted to be kept under review for the remainder of 2008-09.
As a result of these measures, the 2008-09 skilled migration program will be more targeted in delivering the skills needed in the economy, while increasing the number of visas granted to those already in Australia and currently in jobs.  While the existing planning target remains in place as a ceiling, the government retains the ability to cap the program below that figure if necessary.
Where a person has applied to migrate to Australia without an employer sponsor, they will be given priority if they have an occupation on a list of skills in critical shortage.
The list of skills in critical shortage will focus on medical and key IT professionals, engineers and construction trades. The occupations on the critical skills list are the ones most frequently sought by employers through sponsorship.
The new priority processing direction gives priority to
permanent applications in the following order:

1. employer sponsorship
2. state or territory sponsorship
3. an occupation on the Critical Skills List
4. an occupation on the Migration and Occupation Demand List  
5. all other applications.

Critical Skills List (CSL)

The CSL only applies to people who are seeking to migrate under the skilled migration program and who are not sponsored by an employer or nominated by a state or territory government. To check if you are on the list go to the following:
http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/critical-skills-list.pdf

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