Due to the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic, migration to Australia has been pretty slow since last year.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel! News out of Australia indicates that we could see the borders reopen by December.

Hopefully that means more migrants from overseas would be able to enter Australia next year – much more than during the 2020-2021 migration year where the focus was on onshore applicants.

I’ll give you a summary of the 2020-2021 year a bit later on but first let’s chat about the prospect of ‘going back to normal’.

Australia is hopeful that borders will reopen by December 2021

The Australian government has a phased national plan to respond to COVID-19, which includes reopening the borders. The plan’s third phase, ‘Phase C, allows for a gradual border reopening provided 80% of Australians have been vaccinated. The good news is that the Australian government expects to reach this ‘Phase C’ vaccination threshold by December.

Qantas Airways, Australia’s largest airline, has already announced a gradual restart of international flights into Australia from around December 2021. Qantas is seemingly confident that this target date remains in reach based on the pace of Australia’s vaccine rollout.

The reopening of the borders does of course remain dependent on the Australian government’s decisions. However, at the moment, the signs are signaling towards a possible border reopening and with it, hopefully, more movement in terms of offshore skilled migrant nominations in the coming months. I would thus like to encourage you to remain patient and positive!

You can click here for a tracker of Australia’s vaccination status. The tracker shows the national vaccination progress and gives an overview by when Australia expects to meet phase B and C of their reopening plan.

Summary of the 2020-2021 Migration Program year

The 2020-2021 Migration Program year played an important role in Australia’s COVID-19 economic recovery, and it was aimed at creating jobs and bringing high-value investments to Australia.

We now have the results of the Program year and I’ll share a summary with you below:

• The Skilled Independent program (subclass 189) only contributed 9% to the total migration program of 160,000 places, of which only 790 places went to applicants outside Australia.
• Instead of contributing two-thirds to the overall migration program, the Skill Stream only contributed 50.7% to the overall numbers. This means a 19.1% drop from previous years.
• The Global Talent category had an outcome of 9,584 places (12%). The GTI category considers candidates who meet relevant criteria, including demonstrating an international record of exception and outstanding achievements within a target sector.
• Visa processing focused on onshore applicants and applicants in critical sectors and occupations. A massive 71.2% of applicants finalised in the Skill Stream were onshore. A total of 107,997 program places went to applicants in Australia while 52,055 places went to applicants outside Australia.
• The refusal rate of employer-sponsored visas was 2.4%, which is a great compared to the 2019-20 refusal rate of 6%.
• The pipeline for the Parent category was 114,359 applications on 30 June 2021. The estimated processing time of the contributory parent visa categories is currently 58 months.

You can read my full article on this subject on LinkedIn if you’d like a more in-depth look at the results of the 2020-2021 Migration Program year.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need help with a visa application or simply have a question about immigration to Australia. Our team will be more than happy to assist you!

Sincerely
Maike Versfeld

In May, the Australian Government announced a special consideration for Sponsored Temporary Parent Visa holders and significant changes in the Business Innovation and Investment Program.

The Government also published the results of the latest General Skilled Migration Invitation round.

You can get all the details below.

Results of April’s General Skilled Migration invitation round

The Australian Government stipulates on their website that Invitations to Apply are to go to the highest-ranked individuals by points score. Yet, the latest General Skilled Migration invitation round once again instead targeted specific skills critical for Australia’s COVID-19 response. Further to this, the focus was mainly on onshore applicants.

The Government extended invitations to:

• General Practitioners & Resident Medical Officers
• Registered Nurses
• Mining Engineers
• Industrial, Mechanical & Production Engineers
• Veterinarians
• Social Workers
• Other Engineering Professionals
• Medical Laboratory Scientists
• Medical Imagining Professionals
• Other Medical Practitioners
• Life Scientists
• Special Physicians
• Geologists, Geophysicists & Hydrogeologists

Special consideration for the Sponsored Temporary Parent Visa

On Tuesday, 11 May, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered Australia’s 2021-22 Federal Budget speech. In his speech, the Treasurer announced that the Government would extend the validity of the Sponsored Temporary Parent visa (subclass 870) by 18 months for individuals who cannot use their visas due to COVID-19 restrictions.

This special consideration comes into effect in July and is the latest COVID-19 concession granted by the Australian Government.

Business Innovation and Investment Program changes

The Department of Home Affairs has announced a number of changes to the Business Innovation and Investment Program (BIIP). These changes come into effect on 1 July 2021 and are being implemented to drive investment in key sectors and to create jobs.

Acting Minister of Immigration Alan Tudge said in a press release that almost AU$1.3 billion was invested through the Business Innovation and Investment Program in 2020. He added that the changes “….will maximize the economic contribution of these high value investors to get the best possible outcome for Australians.”

The key changes coming into effect are as follows:

• The BIIP will be simplified from nine to four visa streams:
  • Business Innovation
  • Entrepreneur
  • Investor
  • Significant Investor
• Provisional visa holders in all four streams will be able to apply for permanent residence if they meet the requirements, but the provisional visas will now be valid for five years, giving visa holders more time to meet the PR requirements.
• The Premium Investor, Significant Business History and Venture Capital Entrepreneur visas will close to new applications from 1 July 2021.
• Investor and Significant Investor stream:
  • The investment amount for the Investor stream will increase from AU$1.5 million to AU$2.5 million. The investment amount for the Significant Investor stream will remain at AU$5 million.
  • The Complying Investment Framework (CIF) will be applied to both the Investor and Significant Investor stream.
  • The venture capital and private equity component of the CIF will be increased from 10% to 20% with a further 30% dedicated to emerging companies. The balancing investment component will be reduced from 60% to 50%.
  • Funds will be required to provide annual independent audit reports showing their compliance with the CIF
• The requirements for Business Innovation visa holders will increase to ensure the program is attracting migrants with proven business skills. Business Innovation visa holders will be required to hold business assets of AU$1.25 million (up from AU$800,000) and have an annual turnover of AU$750,000 (up from AU$500,000) to prove their business acumen.
• The AU$200,000 funding threshold for Entrepreneur visa applications will be scrapped. Instead, visa applicants will need an endorsement from a state or territory government.

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On Tuesday, 11 May, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered Australia’s 2021-22 Federal Budget speech. In his speech, the Treasurer announced that Australia’s migration planning levels will remain unchanged for the 2021-22 migration year, and the government will continue to prioritise skilled individuals and families.

The 2021-22 Migration Program will retain its planned ceiling of 160,000 places

The migration planning levels for the 2020-21 year was 160,000 and this number is unchanged for the 2021-22 year.

The decision to keep the places the same was driven by the fact that borders are still closed and will remain closed for at least another 12 months, as announced by the government.

Keeping the borders closed to most travellers and migrants have protected Australia against a surge in COVID-19 infections, and the government wants to continue protecting its people against the virus for as long as it feels necessary.

It’s good news for skilled migrants though

The Australian Government is going to continue focusing on highly-skilled individuals in the new migration year.

The government believes this is the right decision given the fact that Australia will need skilled migrants to help it bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the government significantly increased the allocated spots for the Global Talent visa to 15,000, which was 10,000 more than the previous migration year.

The Business Innovation and Investment Program also received more places while places for the Skilled Independent, Skilled Nominated, and Skilled Work Regional visas were slashed.

The picture is looking similar for the 2021-2022 migration year with the focus still squarely on Employer Sponsored, Global Talent, and Business Innovation and Investment Program visas.

In total, the Skilled Stream received 79,600 of the 160,000 spaces in the Migration Program.

The family stream gets 77,300 places for the second year in a row

The family stream places will remain at their 2020-2021 planning levels, and the government will also continue to focus on partner visas.

There was a backlog of nearly 100,000 visa applications by September 2020 but the Department of Home Affairs has worked hard to reduce this number since then. Their work was made easier by a massive increase in family stream places in the 2020-21 migration year.

Is there good news for anyone who still wants to apply for a visa?

It may seem as if all is lost for at least another year but this is not the case. We chatted to Maike Versfeld, one of our licensed advisors, to get her input.

“The international border is expected to gradually re-open from mid-2022.

This assumption is however heavily based on a planned full vaccine rollout to be in place by the end of 2021 with the quarantine program on arrival to remain in place.

The government further expects that there will be a gradual return of international students through small phased programs from late 2021 onward.

These assumptions are however relatively uncertain and highly dependent on the status of international Covid-19 outbreaks, possible new strains and the effectiveness of the vaccines.

We have seen the opportunity for some applicants in critical occupations to be able to apply for a travel exemption to Australia’s border restrictions, if they can show that they either provide critical or specialist medical services, have critical skills required to maintain the supply of essential goods and services or deliver services in sectors critical to Australia’s economic recovery where no Australian worker is available.

There are other exemption categories for other applicant groups but the threshold to be granted an exemption is still relatively high.

We can clearly see that partner visa applications are being processed much faster nowadays than still a few months ago.

Luckily, Partner visa subclass 100, 309, 801 and 820 holders can come to Australia under current border restrictions. This bundled with a faster processing has allowed many partners of Australians or permanent residents to reunite during the pandemic.

Important to consider specifically for skilled migrants is that Australia will definitely need to get in offshore critical skills going forward. It is highly unlikely that they will be able to fill skill shortages purely through onshore applicants.

Attracting onshore skills might be the easier and quicker option right now but we can clearly see that Australian employers still look for offshore expertise and even offered jobs to some offshore applicants during the 2020/21 program year.

Some skilled migrants who work in specific target sectors such as Resources, Agri-food and Ag Tech, Energy, Health, Defence and Advanced Manufacturing and Space, Circular Economy, DigiTech, Infrastructure and tourism as well as in financial services and FinTec as well as even certain highly skilled individuals in the Education sector could be able to be considered under the Global Talent category going forward.

One must also keep in mind that applying to migrate to Australia is a lengthy process which often consist of several steps whereby each step might take weeks or sometimes even months.

With this in mind, even if the next 12 months might not look so bright especially for offshore skilled applicants, it can be still worthwhile to start now in order to be ready when things open up again.”

The 2021-22 migration year in summary

The Australian Government set the migration planning levels for the 2021-22 migration year at 160,000 spaces. The skilled stream received 79,600 and the family stream got 77,300 spaces.

Unfortunately, Australia’s international borders are staying closed and the government expects the borders will only open mid 2022.

Our advice if you want to immigrate as a skilled migrant is to start your visa application now. Despite the borders remaining closed! Skilled migrant visa applications often take months to finalise.

Starting your visa application now means you’ll be ready when the borders open up again.