Australian visa changes in the federal budget: What we know so far
The Albanese government has already bumped up Australia’s migration intake but there are hopes among migrants and potential migrants that even more changes will be revealed in next week’s budget.
What do we know so far?
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles told the summit there were almost one million visas waiting to be processed when Labor won government in May. The median processing time for a temporary skilled visa had since come down from 53 days in May, to 42 days in July.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles at the Jobs and Skills Summit on September 2. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
In a statement on 14 October, Mr Giles said the department had now processed more than two million applications but there was still a backlog of around 872,000 applications due to a dramatic rise in demand since the opening of the borders after they were closed to international arrivals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Giles said the Department of Home Affairs had already added 260 more staff to support visa processing, and more were being recruited and trained in the coming weeks and months.
How does the federal budget impact visas?
Former Department of Immigration secretary Abul Rizvi said the government would need to provide a lot more than the already promised $36.1 million for Home Affairs to get on top of its workload. But he said whether the new government would reverse the $875 million cut in full would depend on the reasons why it was done in the first place.
The Department of Home Affairs’ budget was cut by the previous Morrison government. Source: AAP / JAMES ROSS
“Some of the reasons may have been quite sensible and so you wouldn’t want to reverse them,” Mr Rizvi said. “But obviously when you’ve got the massive gridlock in the visa system that they’ve got at the moment, any cut is going to be a disaster.”
“Decision makers end up refusing applications for sometimes very petty reasons.”
The government has also flagged plans to increase the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold. The threshold was frozen at $53,900 per year but the government says that is too low and more than 80 per cent of all full-time jobs now had a salary above that.
Will more visas become available?
Mr Rizvi said he would be very surprised to see any further increase but the budget would likely reveal the breakdown of how many visas would be available in each category.
Meanwhile, a decision on the number of visas available to refugees as part of the humanitarian program has not yet been announced.
Jim Chalmers will deliver the October Budget on 25 October. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
Labor promised at the election to abolish temporary protection visas and to transfer those who had been found to be legitimate refugees to permanent visas.
The current humanitarian program allows for 13,750 places in 2022-23. An extra 16,500 places over four years have been provided for Afghan refugees.
This article will be updated as more information is released.
