Key Points
- The immigration minister has revealed where the visa backlog now stands.
- Here's how the government plans to further tackle the issue.
Australia's visa backlog must be reduced to ensure the nation can remain competitive on a global scale, the immigration minister says, as he revealed the government has made progress in tackling the "massive" problem.
In a speech at the Migration Institute of Australia National Conference in Hobart on Wednesday, Andrew Giles revealed the visa backlog now sits at around 880,000 applications.
That's down from almost 1 million non-humanitarian applications before the federal election, which was held in May. not long after Labor won government.
In his speech, Mr Giles also said the minimum salary to qualify for a skilled worker visa could soon change.
How is the government working to clear the visa backlog?
In July, the government said it was determined to reduce the backlog .
That same month, s it had redirected extra resources and was bringing on more staff to address the problem.
This was confirmed at the Jobs and Skills Summit in September, where the government announced it would spend in order to lower visa processing times.
Mr Giles said in his speech that there is now an extra 260 staff working on visa applications. A further 260 are being trained.
He said that since 1 June, the Department had processed more than 2 million temporary and permanent skilled visa applications, including 1.35 million visas for visitors, students, and temporary skilled workers.
Mr Giles said "policy changes" would "streamline" the processing of temporary visas, leaving fewer in the backlog.
that since 1 June, about 2.2 million new visa applications have been received. That's up 495,000 compared with last year, during the COVID-19 pandemic when international borders were closed.
Why is the government eager to clear the backlog?
Mr Giles said the backlog created "ongoing uncertainty" for applicants, which was not only difficult for them, but also for businesses.
He said it was not "smart" for "hundreds of thousands of people" to be on bridging visas, which can be issued when an individual's substantive visa expires and they are waiting for a new application to be processed.
"Australia does not have the luxury of operating in an environment free from competition," Mr Giles told the conference.
He reiterated the federal government's desire to improve pathways to permanent residency, after it increased the permanent migration cap from 160,000 to 195,000 visa places for the current financial year.
"Leading technology businesses, medical research institutions, and major infrastructure companies are faced with the impossible situation of trying to recruit across the world and unable to offer the sponsored pathway to permanent residency, that is required to compete internationally," he said.
"This Government understands the benefits of permanent residency and the dangers of keeping people trapped on temporary visas."
What about a wage boost for migrants?
Labor has previously pledged to increase the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT).
The TSMIT is the minimum salary that must be offered when sponsoring a temporary skilled migrant and is currently set at $53,900 — a figure that has been frozen for almost a decade.
Mr Giles said over 80 per cent of full-time jobs have salaries higher than this figure.
Average pre-tax earnings for full-time adult workers in Australia are $1,769.80 a week, or $92,029.60 a year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
"This wage is not indicative of the place for skilled migration in the modern labour market. It is too low and this government will increase it," Mr Giles said, although he did not specify by how much the government would increase it.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions. The Australian Chamber of Commence and Industry says it should be lifted to $60,000.
