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MORE PLACES FOR SKILLS PROGRAMME By Lance Fee,Director Live Downunder UK SENATOR Chris Evans, Australia's Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, has announced an immediate increase to the skilled migration stream of 6000 places for this programme year ending in June 2008. In announcing the increase, the Minister said that the move was in response to the deepening labour shortages in the construction and mining sectors. The increased visa numbers will be shared between the Employer Nomination category and the General Skilled Migration category. This new allocation will bring the total permanent visa allocation to 108,500 for the 2007-08 programme year. At the same time, the Minister announced that the Working Holiday Programme's second year entitlement would be extended to those that took up employment for three months in the regional construction sector. At the moment, the extension is only available for those who work in the primary industry sector. There has been a mixed response to the Minister's announcement with most industry groups commenting that it is 'too little, too late'. However, it is a move in the right direction and it comes soon after the Rudd Government has had its first Parliamentary sitting. The announced increase is good news for those looking at migrating to Australia, but it falls a long way short of addressing the main problems, which beset the current system at the moment. These include the slow processing times and the costly and time-consuming assessment system. Add to this the age restriction of 45 years and the need for some native English speakers to take a language test. When the points test was amended in September 2007, the normal 20 points for native English speakers was reduced to 15 points, but an incentive of 25 points was offered for those prepared to undertake the International English Language Test Scheme (IELTS). This added more cost onto the visa process but, more importantly, it added further delays as testing centres waiting lists grow longer. At the present time, the permanent Employer Nomination Scheme visa takes anywhere between four to six months to process and the Skilled Processing Centre in Adelaide is taking between six to nine months for processing. This means that none of the additional places allocated will see a visa issued in this processing year. The answer here is to put additional resources in place to speed up the processing. The immediate benefit of such a move could see many of the badly needed skills in Australia in less than four months. The other issue that needs to be addressed is the assessment process, particularly in the trade area. The matter of on-the-job training is still awaiting resolution after Trades Recognition Australia refused to consider any further assessment of this category late last year. A simple solution to this and a far speedier process would be to authorise overseas trade and technical institutions to make an assessment. The assessments made by them could be monitored to ensure their assessments were up to Australian standards. The ultimate goal would be to ensure that standard processing for a skilled visa took no longer than six months, with those occupations in demand taking three to four months. As for the Employer Nomination Scheme, processing should not exceed three months. |
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