New migration policy in Australia

English test for migration revamp to favour doctors, nurses and teachers | News.com.au

FOREIGN doctors, nurses and school teachers who speak good English and have jobs already organised will be Australia's top priority migrants under a major overhaul of immigration policy.

The changes, to be unveiled by Immigration Minister Chris Evans today, are expected to target professionals with university degrees who are sponsored by employers and discourage self-nominating migrants such as cooks, hairdressers and accountants.

The new policy will axe the Migration Occupations on Demand List, which lists 106 occupations in demand.

Only half the migrants entering Australia with skills on the MODL actually end up employed in their field and one-third end up unemployed or in a low-skill job, Senator Evans said.

It will be replaced by a new Skilled Occupations List of high-value professions and trades drawn up by Skills Australia.

The Federal Government's overhaul of the skilled migration program could damage Australia's reputation abroad, the Federal Opposition has warned.


Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said there would be big transition costs associated with the changes, which would hit the international education sector hard.

This is because there are many foreign students already taking courses on the in-demand list, whose study may no longer improve their chances of permanent migration.

"There'll be many students who'll be caught between a rock and a hard place," Mr Morrison said.

"It addition ... there'll be a lot of pressure on those colleges (catering to overseas students) and I suspect many will fail.

"That will obviously have impacts for jobs."

Australia's reputation as a destination for skilled migration could be jeopardised as a result, he said.

He urged the Government to ensure that two-thirds of Australia's migration program came from the skilled workforce.

"It's important skilled migration remain the dominant component of our migration intake because it ... contributes to the economy, that pays the taxes, that pays for the hospitals and the roads and the services," he said.

More than 20,000 foreigners who applied to migrate to Australia before September 2007 under outdated rules that allowed lower English skills will have their applications withdrawn and their $1500-$2000 applications fees refunded under the changes.

This is because the system that allocates potential migrants points based on their qualifications and skills will be restructured.

"The current points test puts an overseas student with a short-term vocational qualification gained in Australia ahead of a Harvard-educated environmental scientist," Senator Evans said.

The new system is likely to give potential migrants more points if they are qualified in certain high-value professions and trades, went to a prestigious university, have more experience and display excellence in English.

The Immigration Minister will get the power to set a maximum number of visas that may be granted in any one occupation and the states will be able to prioritise skilled migrants.

Senator Evans said the changes would shift our immigration system from a supply driven model to a demand driven system in which migrants sponsored by an employer would get priority.

While Australia's hospitals need nurses and doctors there are 12,000 foreign cooks waiting to come to Australia under the existing system, he said.

Under the existing system 40,000 unsponsored visas were issued to accountants over the past five years yet a shortage of accountants persists because most did not get work in the profession.

"Australia's skilled migration program has been delivering self-nominated migrants from a narrow range of occupations with poor to moderate English language skills who struggle to find employment in their nominated occupation" Senator Evans will tell an Australian National University demography institute today.

Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson said skilled migration needed to be scaled back because it had "three strikes" against it.

It fueled runaway population growth, put downward pressure on wages and conditions, and came at the expense of training young Australian workers, he said.

Mr Thomson said the program had got out of control since the previous Coalition government started allowing international students to apply for permanent residence onshore, instead of making them return to their home countries first.

"(Education) agents have had a field day telling overseas students all they needed to do was to pay large fees and they'd be guaranteed permanent residence here," he said.

"We need to decouple the link between education and permanent residence."

Mr Thomson said the move wouldn't be seen as racist but would in fact lead to a much needed clean-up of the international student industry.

Meanwhile, Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey said it wasn't fair that people who went through the the "proper processes" to migrate should have it tougher, while the "welcome mat" was rolled out for asylum seekers.