Anthony Albanese’s government has made several significant changes to Australia’s migration policies:
- Reduced visa backlog since coming into office in May 2022
- Increased permanent migration program in 2022/23 from 160,000 to 195,000 places for skilled and family visas
- Positively changed the Temporary skill shortage (TSS) subclass 482 visas by allowing candidates to apply for permanent residency, removing the age restrictions on 457 visa holders and expanding the eligibility for subclass 462 Working Holiday Maker visas
- Allowing 19,000 refugees on temporary protection visas to apply for permanent residency
Please have a look below at more visa opportunities in Australia for 2023:
- New visa for certain countries
A new visa will be introduced in July 2023 providing 3,000 places for eligible migrants from Pacific countries and Timor Leste. Workers from Pacific countries such as the Solomon Islands will have access to a new Australian visa from 1 July 2023. Please stay tuned for more details coming up soon.
- Priority processing for New Zealanders
New Zealand citizens living in Australia will benefit from priority processing of Skilled Independent (Subclass 189) visa applications in the New Zealand stream.
The department has dropped certain visa requirements including requirement of living in Australia for at least five years and meeting certain taxable income thresholds as well as health criteria.
NOTE: The department has stopped taking new visa applications from 10 December 2022 until 1 July 2023, in order to process the backlog already in the system.
- Good News for State-sponsored visas applicants
The number of visas available through the state and territories is set to dramatically increase thanks to the larger regional allocation.
Approximately 31,000 visas are planned to be allocated to state nominated SC190 and 34,000 visas in the regional sponsored SC491 in 2022/23. Under the Business Innovation and Investment program (SC188), the number is said to be another 5,000 visas. This is a major increase from the numbers prior to the OVID-19 pandemic.
- Easier family unification
The Albanese government has made it easier for families to reunite, introducing demand-driven partner visas estimating approximately 40,000 such visas to be allotted in 2022/23.
Approximately 3,000 Child visas are estimated to be issued.
- Change to processing of visas for some ‘in-demand’ occupations
Skilled visa applications for teachers and healthcare workers are now being assessed in just three days after the government stopped using the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL) to rank applications.
Applications are now being decided in the following order of priority:
- Healthcare or teaching occupation applications;
- Employer-sponsored visas for applicants nominated by an Approved sponsor with Accredited Status;
- Those for a designated regional area;
- For permanent and provisional visa subclasses, visa applications that count towards the migration program, excluding the Subclass 188 (Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional)) visa;
- All other visa applications.
Within each category, priority is given to applicants located outside Australia for provisional and permanent skilled visa applications.
To assess your eligibility, call us or email us immediately!