Australia Immigration: Upcoming Changes for Immigrants in 2020

Several countries follow the point-based system to identify skilled migrant labours. They are judged and ranked accordingly based on certain characteristics that define their ability to stand eligible for specific jobs.

Education, work experience, language are some of the points of categorizing them and then positioning them. Australia follows the same procedure. The candidates scoring the highest number of points based on the features mentioned above are then invited.

They have to submit or apply for a visa application. Australia is the only country among several others that allow people to migrate without a job offer. The current system in the UK for admitting non-EU citizens is referred to as the ‘Points-Based System’. The Australian model of the Points-Based System is centrally planned out, focusing on the workers.

Recently, Australia has revoked its point-based system and has introduced new changes and reforms to its various visa categories in the past few months. These changes ought to bring some influence on immigration. These changes were implemented in November last year, which had a dramatic impact. The reforms are as follows:

• Ten points would be given to the applicants who do not have a spouse or partner.
• Ten points will be awarded if you have a skilled spouse or partner.
• Those applicants will be given an additional 15 points. They have to be nominated by a State or Territory government or sponsored by a family member residing in Australia.
• Ten points reserved for the applicants for STEM qualifications.
• Five points reserved for the applicants whose spouse or partner is proficient in English. In such a case, the partner need not go through a skill assessment.

These changes mentioned above have created a huge impact on General Skilled Migration (GSM) visa categories.

Along with these new reforms, the Australian Government also introduced two new regional visas. This came into effect in November 2019. The two visas are namely Skilled Work Regional (subclass 491) and Skilled Employer-Sponsored Regional visa (subclass 494).

They will now have 25,000 places reserved for them out of the planned 160,000 seats by the Government of Australia. The introduction of these two visas is aimed to attract skilled migrants to come and settle down in the regional areas.

Replacing the Subclass 489 and Subclass 187, the two new visas have brought the following changes in the process:

• The regional visas will have a broader range of occupations compared to non-regional pathways.
• Visa holders will now be eligible for permanent residency without the need to undergo a second nomination stage.
• Visas will now stand valid for five years.
• Priority processing of these visa applications will be done.
• Visa application under Subclass 491 will get access to more points.
• The earlier minimum period of 2 years required to live and work in regional Australia has now been extended to 3 years.

Most of the population used to concentrate only on three major cities of Australia. In an attempt to decentralize this crowd, these visas are introduced to encourage immigrants to settle down in regional areas.

These visas are meant to provide incentives to these migrants to settle down in regional Australia. This will further contribute to the development of the economy of these areas.

Along with this, visas for overseas farm workers and a temporary partner visa was also introduced. This was to allow workers to focus on their skilled based jobs.