Reforms in migration legislation.

The Australian Government's Department of Home Affairs has published the final report of the Migration System Review and a summary of the government's migration strategy. The plan is to overhaul the entire migration system to make it clear, transparent, efficient and capable of supporting Australia's continued prosperity and security. The priority areas for review are skilled immigration programs (work, student and skilled visas), family migration (especially parent visas), New Zealand citizen migration and humanitarian migration.

The report contains a detailed description of all the accumulated shortcomings of the migration system. The most pressing issues identified include the failure of the system to identify, attract and provide a direct route to residency and citizenship for the most sought-after professionals, the exploitation (a term from the report!) of migrants arriving on work visas, the inability of migrants to bring their parents within an acceptable time frame, and a significant increase in the population of what is known as “permanently temporary” migrants living in Australia for a long time without residency or citizenship (including on bridging visas).

Suggested solutions to these issues have been proposed, and we will be monitoring how these proposals are implemented in practice. Changes to PR visas for skilled workers may make this route impossible for those currently considering it, and it may make sense to speed up the submission of applications. For those wishing to bring their parents, it would be more logical, in my opinion, to wait and see what new options the Government will offer. Read more here: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/.../the-migration-strategy. The report itself is here: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/.../review-migration...(very interesting and only 190 pages).