Hi again,

This is a copy of an email that we have sent to our clients to explain the changes and the impact of the changes a little bit more. I thought it may be helpful to post it on the forum:

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Hello,

I just wanted to drop you an email regarding the changes made to the Australian Migration process today by the Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Two changes have been announced;

The first is a cut in the total number of places available to the Australian Migration program from 133 500 down to 115 000. This will take effect immediately.
The Critical Skills List will change. This does not effect an application's points break down; it simply affects the priority processing of applications.

Total Number of Places Available
The reduction represents 14% of the total. However, to put this in perspective, the 2008/09 intake of approx. 133 500 was the largest intake the Australian Government had ever announced. The year before, the total intake of skilled migrants was approx. 108 540 under the skilled stream so the new current total of 115 000 still represents an increase in migrants compared to the previous yearly intake. In addition, it may be helpful to point out, that quotas do not affect someone's eligibility to apply for a visa and, as yet, these proposed changes have not affected any points calculation or eligibility to apply. They will however affect the amount of time an application requires to process.

Critical Skills List
In December 2008, the Minister announced that a new way of prioritising applications would take effect. The highest priority was given to people who had job offers in Australia and people who had successfully received sponsorship from a State or Territory. The second level of priority was given to people who occupations were on the Critical Skills List (which is different from the Occupation in Demand List). The Critical Skills List included many occupations including Health, IT and construction trades. It is this list which is being revised.

Here is a link to the new list:
http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...kills-list.pdf.

Most of the construction occupations have been removed. The result of this is not to affect the eligibility of an application, however it will affect the processing times of applications whose occupations are not on the CSL and who have not obtained State or Territory sponsorship.

In short, the changes announced today are likely to result in a longer wait for a visa for most applicants. At present it is difficult to say exactly how long as it will vary considerably depending on your precise circumstances. For applicants who have lodged applications already, please do not hesitate to contact me directly regarding these changes. For applicants who have not yet lodged, as always, we advise you to please provide us with the documents we need to lodge your application as soon as possible so that we secure your position within the Department of Immigration.

Finally, we note that some aspects of the media's reporting of this issue (and in fact the Minister's own website) contains inaccuracies about processing priorities of the Australian Migration Program. We would ask that you do not hesitate to contact us directly for information about Australia's skilled migration program at this time.

We will let you know as soon as we have any further information about these and any future proposed changes.

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Cheers,
Veronika

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Veronika Hurbis
MARA Registered Migration Agent: 0301155
e:veronika@sortoutmyvisa.com