Following the Australian Government’s budget announcement, we can provide you with both a broad overview of projected migrant visa numbers and also more specific details.
Broadly speaking, here are the topline figures for migration:
- Australia will welcome 81,900 more migrants than it expected just four months ago, in the coming 2022-2023 financial year.
- Focussing on skilled migration, visa processing priority will be given to 160,000 people,
- The Skill stream will increase to 109,900, more than 30,000 places above 2021-22 planning levels. Of those, 10,000 were moved from the Partner visa category. The remaining 50,000 visa places will go to the Family stream.
- Regional visas will more than double to 25,000 places to support growth in regional Australia.
- Visa allocation places to the following categories have been announced:
- Business Innovation and Investment (9,500 places),
- Global Talent (8,448 places)
- Distinguished Talent (300 places)
We also have more specific information for a variety of visas and situations as follows:
Women on visas experiencing domestic violence
The government has provided $20.3 million in funding to provide direct support to women on temporary visas experiencing violence. It aims to address the challenges among women from culturally and linguistically diverse communities in finding appropriate and accessible support services.
The Budget recognises that women from migrant and refugee backgrounds can be less likely to report violence because of language barriers, cultural stigma, concerns about visa and residency status, and financial insecurity.
The funding provides up to $3,000 per person or family to cover expenses such as accommodation and medical care.
It also includes $7 million over two years for nine Women’s and Community Legal Services across the country to help women access legal assistance and migration support.
Mental health and support for multicultural communities
The Government is investing nearly 35 million dollars to improve access to high-quality mental health, suicide prevention, and social and emotional wellbeing services for Indigenous and migrant communities.
Nearly 18 million dollars will go towards delivering dedicated mental health support to multicultural communities in Australia.
That includes ten million dollars of top-up funding for a program supporting humanitarian entrants and survivors of torture and trauma.
Another eight million goes towards ensuring translation services are available, removing a barrier to accessing these mental health support for Australians whose primary language may not be English.
Humanitarian support
The number of humanitarian visas available is to be maintained at its current level of 13,750.
The Government says this will enable it to support the transition of Ukrainian refugees on to a temporary humanitarian visa, subclass 786.
An additional 16,500 places will be made available for Afghan nationals under the Humanitarian program and will be equally allocated over the next four years.
The Government says this is in recognition of Australia’s two decades of operations in Afghanistan.
Working Holiday Makers
The Budget has increased the number of Working Holiday Maker visas by 11,000.
This one-off cap increase will increase the number of places available to backpackers from the 26 partner countries which operate under the cap agreement with Australia.
The Government estimates this would bring in an extra 45 million dollars to the economy over the next three years.
To encourage more backpackers to take up travel to Australia, the Government says visa holders who arrived in Australia between January and April this year can apply for a refund of the visa application charge.
For further information, if any of these announcements affect you, please get in touch with our expert team.
