The maximum number of visas available for the 2019/2020 program year will be lowered to 160,000, with the most significant cuts from the Skilled Independent and Employer Sponsored visa types. This is to make way for 23,000 places in the new regional visa program announced for November 2019.
Push to regional Australia
As reported in our article from 27 March, Immigration plans to introduce three new visas aimed at attracting migrants to regional areas of Australia. From 1 November 2019, the provisional employer sponsored and provisional work visas would be available, with the permanent Skilled Regional visa available from November 2022.
The definition of ‘regional’ will be simplified to include anywhere outside of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, so migrants can look at places like Queensland’s North coast and Toowoomba, New South Wales’ Northern Rivers, Central coast, and Hunter Valley, Geelong and the Grampians region in Victoria, and anywhere in South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory.
The current permanent Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (subclass 187) visa and the State Nominated temporary regional visa (subclass 489) will be discontinued when the new regional visas come into effect. Existing visa holders and applications lodged before this date will not be affected.
For people considering regional options, this means that the current regional visa subclasses will be replaced by new regional visa subclasses. The major change proposed so far is that requirement to live in the region will increase from 2 to 3 years.
From 1 November 2019, the skilled migration points test will be adjusted to award additional points to applicants where their partner has competent English but cannot meet the other requirements for skilled partner points. Single applicants will not be disadvantaged as there will be other additional points available, however, there is no detail on how these points are to be gained.
