At this time of year when the Australian budget is released on the 1st of July, the Australian migration system’s annual quotas and ceilings are also refreshed. As a result, the July changes herald a resetting of the migration system together with some legislative changes.

The most common change (at this time of year) is for the Department of Home Affairs and Immigration (DHA) to increase the visa application charges. In general, this year, fees are being increased by approximately 3%, so you can expect slightly higher visa application charges from the 1st of July. The new fees can be checked on the DHA website by clicking here: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/...s/overview

New migration planning levels also get implemented on the 1st of July, which affects how many visas the DHA can grant in the next financial year (July 2022-June 2023), per visa category. We have previously posted about the planning level changes, and if you want more information about this please check out our previous news item regarding this.

We should add that, Australia recently had federal elections and the result is that labour won, meaning the end of the Morrison government. Given the changing of the guard, it is not out of the realm of possibility that planning levels could be tweaked and changed, but it is unlikely. The new Minister of Immigration, Andrew Giles, has announced that he is not impressed with the lengthy visa processing times and has urged the DHA to get on top of this. With new resource allocations inbound, we can expect visa processing times to start to shorten, albeit, gradually.

Skilled Migration is one of the visa categories that is affected the most by the July changes, particularly point-tested skilled migration/ general skilled migration (GSM). We have often seen changes to the Australian skilled occupations list(s), but we have not seen any changes to the Australia-wide list of occupations this year.

It is also this time of year that the state/territory governments (the states) refresh their state migration plans (SMPs), and publish their occupation short-lists of what occupations they are after in the new programme year. This year we as glad to see that Western Australia has already published their list (before July 1st), However, as of the 1st of July, there is no sign that the new SMP is fully up and running, as the old SMP for 2021-22 is still active on their website. Having checked all the States on the 1st of July none of them has published or activated their new SMPs for 2022-23. It is fairly standard for the States to take some time to introduce their new SMPs and we expect that they are all waiting for their quota allocations and any conditions to be confirmed by the DHA.

We will keep monitoring the SMPs and will do a separate blog post regarding the State updates when these start to become available.

Other changes we have noted this year are summarised as follows.

Legislative Changes from 01/07/2022

• measures will be introduced to improve access to permanent residence for certain holders of Subclass 482 (Temporary Skill Shortage) visas and Subclass 457 (Temporary Work (Skilled)) visas, particularly for occupations on the STSOL, which was not previously possible. The purpose of the instrument is to specify a new group of specified persons who, after 30 June 2022, will be eligible to meet requirements under regulation 5.19 of the Regulations for applications seeking approval for a nomination of a Temporary Residence Transition Stream (TRT) visa under subclass 186 and/or 187. This concession will only exist until 1st July 2024, so eligible applicants would have to already be holders of 482/457 visas to have worked for the employer for the specified period of 3 years in 4 or 2 years in 3, respectively, before applying by the deadline. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...0/Download
  

• Applicants for subclass 186 who held a subclass 457 on or after 18th April 2017 and were in Australia for at least 12 months between 1st February 2020 and 14 December 2021 will not be required to be under any age limit at the time of application under the TRT stream. This measure seeks to redress transitional arrangements in LIN 19/216 which adversely affected 457 visa holders who could not access those transitional arrangements, some of whom missed out as they were 50 years or older. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...5/Download
  

• Holders of subclass 476 visas who are or have been outside Australia due to Covid restrictions have been granted extensions to 14 April 2024. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...1/Download
  

• Specified occupations and geographic areas have been announced for subclass 317 and 462 visas to assist with flood and bushfire recovery. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...8/Download
  

• Payment of Visa Application Charges in foreign currencies is redefined. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...3/Download
  

• Places and currencies for paying Visa Application Charges are stipulated.  https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...4/Download
  

• New Visa Application Charges are defined for each visa subclass. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...8/Download
  

• Subclass 485 visa Occupation Nomination and Skills assessment - persons applying for the visa between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 will not be required to nominate a skilled occupation from the list of specified skilled occupations. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...2/Download
  

• Subclass 417 visas to increase the eligible age for Danish or Italian applicants for a subclass 417 visa to the maximum of 35 years of age. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...0/Download
  

• Subclass 600 visa applicants in certain health-related occupations from TB-risk countries, were exempted from testing from 18 March 2018. This has now been reversed. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...4/Download
  

• All citizenship application fees are now only payable in Australian dollars. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...5/Download
  

• Brazil and Mongolia are added as eligible subclass 462 visa partner countries. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...0/Download
  

• A new stream is created within the Subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) visa to allow holders of those visas to obtain another Subclass 485 visa if they were unable to stay in Australia for the full period of grant of their previous visa due to the international travel restrictions in force from 1 February 2020 to 14 December 2021. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...5/Download
  

• NZ Citizen Family member subclass 417 visa - offshore applicants no longer need to lodge with a departmental office overseas. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...8/Download
  

• Subclass 500 visas are now subject to new visa condition 8208 to safeguard against the risk of unwanted transfer of Australia’s critical technology in certain temporary and permanent visa programs. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...1/Download & https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details...6/Download
  

If you have any questions or concerns about the July changes, please don’t hesitate to contact us via telephone on 01483 550 919 or email us at info@immigration2oz.com or feel free to book a call back: https://calendly.com/i2oz/free-evaluation-call.