Breaking the link

I have previously blogged about the difference between the "immigration outcome" and the "education outcome" as one of the factors which contributed to the problems being encountered by overseas students. It appears that the government was listening (or they had the same idea).

In a speech to parliament earlier this week in support of changes to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act ("ESOS Act"), labour MP, Kelvin Thomson blamed the uncontrolled growth (and the lack of quality that came with it) on the previous government's policy of facilitating applications for permanent residence by graduating foreign students. So while it's true that:

"Agents overseas have had a field day telling students that all they have to do is sign up for these courses in Australia, pay big fees, and they'll be guaranteed permanent residence here in Australia....and...[that] international students being bashed, and exploited, dodgy colleges ripping them off and going bankrupt"

The proposal is basically for a 2 year cooling off period - so the graduating students would be required to return to their home country (or at least leave Australia) for two years before being eligible to apply for permanent residence. It is argued that this will clean up the sector.

I don't doubt that this will probably stamp out lots of the dodgy operators but I'm not sure what impact it will have on "real" high quality university courses. Our universities have come to depend on the income that students generate. It would not be good for local students if university income was dramatically cut by this change. On the other hand, I can't see why people who have substantially invested in an Australian education shouldn't be given some incentive to stay. Nothing in immigration policy is ever easy!

The full text of Mr Thomson's speech is available on Hansard for 19 October (page 47) - click here.

Photo used under creative commons licence:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mklingo/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

The Market Salary Requirement

On 14 September 2009, the Migration Legislation (Worker Protection) Act came into force. There are many changes which are "blog worthy", but one which is already causing some difficulty is the abolition of the minimum salary level for the 457 visa and it's replacement with the requirement to employ overseas workers on equivalent terms and conditions to those for Australian workers. One way this manifests itself is that the worker must be paid the market salary rate.

The policy behind this change is sound - it's to prevent the exploitation of overseas workers and to protect the local work force. It brings many concepts from the Fair Work Act into alignment with the Migration Act. For larger organisations where there are industrial or workplace agreements this is not a problem, but in smaller business where there is no-one else doing the job it is difficult to show what market rates are. I have pasted in below an extract from the current DIAC request for information:

"If there are no other employees in your business occupying similar positions, please provide independent evidence demonstrating that the terms and conditions of employment and base rate of pay are ones that would be provided to a local employee in an equivalent position.  This may include remuneration surveys, published earnings data or evidence of what employees are paid in similar workplaces."

It turns out that a salary survey by itself is not good enough unless the employer can show that they use the survey relied on as a guide to setting salaries. This requirement is causing some problems for some of my clients at the moment!

More details are on the DIAC website.

Processing Priority

The Migration Act allows the Minister to set the priority in which GSM (general skilled migration) visa applications are to be processed. On 23 September 2009, a new ministerial direction came into effect and the following applications are subject to priority processing:

1. employer nominated visa applications
2. regional sponsored visa applications
3. applications where the nominated occupation is on the "critical skills shortage list" (there are a couple of subcategories here, depending on whether it is sponsored or not);
4. MODL applications; and
5. the rest.

So what happens if you are not eligible for priority processing - it appears the answer is you lodge your application now and wait "about 3 years"! - see the following extract from the priority processing direction:

"Q11 My application does not fall into one of the priority categories. When can I expect to have my application finalised? If your nominated occupation is not on the CSL and you have applied for an offshore GSM visa or intend to apply for an offshore GSM before the end of 2009, it is unlikely that your visa will be finalised before the end of 2012. If your nominated occupation is not on the CSL and you applied for an onshore GSM visa or intend to apply for an onshore GSM before the end of 2009, it is unlikely that your visa will be finalised before the end of 2011."

Photo used under creative commons licence:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/redvers/ / CC BY 2.0