187 visa, also known as RSMS visa, is a permanent residence visa for skilled workers who want to work in regional Australia.

By Mosiqi Acharya
 

The Department of Home Affairs has introduced a new list for Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme visa (RSMS) effective from March 18th 2018.  

The Regional Occupations List (ROL) aimed at addressing the needs of regional Australia has 465 occupations ranging from primary school teacher to welfare worker and geologist to winemaker.

This new list of occupations is applicable for Subclass 187 visa, a permanent residence visa for skilled workers who want to work in regional Australia and is available under one of two streams: the Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) stream or the Direct Entry (DE) stream.

To be eligible for this visa, the applicant will need to be nominated by an Australian employer in regional Australia, be under 45 years of age and has to meet the skills, qualifications and English language requirements.

Applicants will also need to have prior work experience and may be requested to provide a positive skills assessment.

Registered migration agent Jitesh Chheda says the new requirement of work experience for RSMS visa might make it difficult for many international students who were earlier able to get employer-sponsored visas after completing their Vocational Education and Training (VET) certificate and diploma courses.

“Many international students were earlier able to apply for 187 visa while they worked as restaurant managers, store managers, in cafes or worked as Chefs and cooks in regional areas.

“Upon completion of their VET courses, they would find employment in regional area and transition to 187 visa. However, from March 2018, they need to prove their work experience to be eligible for RSMS visa under TRT stream. Not many international students have the required work experience. This new change may rule out employer sponsored visa for many international students who were earlier eligible for this visa,” Chheda says.

The Regional Occupations list is likely to be revised in July 2018 following a review by the Department of Jobs and Small Business, including a public consultation process.
​
CHECK OUT THE REGIONAL OCCUPATION LIST (ROL)
REGIONAL OCCUPATION LIST

​FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK HE LINK BELOW:
www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2018/03/19/new-regional-occupation-list-introduced-rsms-187-visa

The Turnbull government will create a new visa to compete with other countries for “high-tech skills and talent”, with companies allowed to sponsor migrants for jobs paid more than $180,000.

There will also be a new visa for start-up companies seeking talent in STEM fields like biomedicine and agricultural technology.

Both visas will require the migrant to have three years of relevant experience, while the sponsor companies will need to demonstrate they tried to hire Australians first.

“The Government recognises there is fierce competition globally for high-tech skills and talent, and that attracting these people helps to transfer skills to Australian workers and grow Australian-based businesses,” a Turnbull government media release reads.

There will not be a cap on the overall number of visas, but individual companies will have a limit on how many migrants they can employ. 

Businesses will be able to take up to 20 skilled migrants under the new stream per year, while start-ups will be able to take up to five. 

The visas for jobs paid more than $180,000 will only be available to businesses with a turnover of more than $4 million. The start-up visas will be available to any that is authorised by an industry body, yet to be chosen by the government. 

The migrants will have the option of a "transitional pathway" to permanent residence after three years in the country. 

The details of the scheme will be ironed out over the next few months before a 12-month pilot begins on July 1.

Start-ups hail win after 457 changes left industry reeling

The need for visa changes to attract high-value employees from overseas has been the “number one priority” in the emerging startup sector, according to an industry group.

StartupAUS chief executive Alex McCauley said the government’s changes to 457 temporary work visas last year, which restricted the list of occupations and cut off the path to permanent residency for many jobs, had made it harder for start-ups to compete.

“The single biggest challenge for Australian start-ups is getting access to the best talent in the world,” Mr McCauley told SBS News.

“It got more difficult when the 457 visa announcements were made last year and start-ups in this country are really crying out for a way to get access to talent.”

“Everybody’s looking to hire product managers, software engineers, digital growth specialists, data scientists.”
Mr McCauley said the jobs in question were highly specialised and the visa workers were unlikely to take jobs away from Australians.

“They’re hiring people at a very high skill level in a space where there aren’t a huge number of Australians competing for those jobs,” he said.

“And the Australians that are competing for those jobs are getting jobs.”

Alan Tudge, Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, said the visas required companies to seek Australian workers first. 

"We want to ensure that Australian businesses can access the best talent in the world because this will underpin business growth, skills transfer and job creation," Mr Tudge said. 

“At all stages, Australians are prioritised for the jobs, but where the skills and experience are not available here, we want to be able to attract talent from overseas."

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-to-offer-highly-skilled-migrants-new-visa-for-jobs-over-180-000
​

The controversial employer-sponsored 457 visa program has been abolished after the long-awaited legislation replaces it with a new visa program known as Temporary Skill Shortage visa which comes into effect on Sunday, March 18th.

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Temporary Skill Shortage Visa and Complementary Reforms) Regulations 2018 repeals the 457 visa and replaces it with the new Subclass 482 visa.  The new visa enables employers to access a skilled overseas worker if they can't find workers with the required skills in Australia.

The new visa available in different streams - short term and medium term – requires mandatory work experience besides tightened English language requirements for the longer duration visa. Applicants are also required to obtain a positive skill assessment before they can apply for the visa.  

Experts believe many international students will who were earlier able to get employer-sponsored visas after completing their certificate and diploma courses, will find it “very difficult” to get the new visa due to additional requirements.

“Very few international students are likely to have a relevant 2-year experience and positive skill assessment based on that,” says Jujhar Bajwa, a migration agent.

Under the TSS, short-term visas will be issued for two years, while medium-term visas will be issued for up to four years which requires a band score of 5 overall and minimum 5 in each component of the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS).

The short-term stream of the visa does not provide a pathway to permanent residency.

In a major crackdown on the alleged rort of the 457 visa program, the Federal Government last year announced the overhaul of employer-sponsored visas which will be fully implemented by the end of this month.

Mr Bajwa says more overseas applicants are likely to be better positioned to successfully avail this new visa than onshore international students.

“There are likely to be far fewer international students that overseas applicants who will be eligible for TSS. The overseas applicants with relevant experience and positive skill assessment will have good chances of being approved for it,” he said.

Employers looking to sponsor overseas workers on short-term TSS visa can access occupations on the Short-term Skilled Occupation List (STSOL) and for the medium-term four-year visa, occupations on the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List can be accessed.

The TSS also has a Labour Agreement stream that allows Australian employers to source skilled overseas workers in accordance with a labour agreement with the government, where there is a demonstrated need that cannot be met in the Australian labour market and standard visa programs are not available.

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/03/16/new-visa-replaces-controversial-employer-sponsored-457-visa

One in every four of us is a migrant.
Photo: Simone De Peak

To conduct the debate as the ABC did on both Four Corners and Q&A on Monday night, as if it was only about us, leaves out half the picture.

People come here to get a better life, and they generally do. Those who don’t, leave.

If we can lift the living standard of people who would like to come here, without much harming (or even while enriching) our own, why shouldn’t we?

Here’s a quick run-through of some of the things that have been said about the harm migration is supposed to have done to our prosperous country.

Tony Abbott says it has held down wages. Indeed, “It is a basic law of economics that increasing the supply of labour depresses wages.”

It would have held down wages, had it not lifted the demand for labour at the same time, which is what happens when the population grows.
​
To see that this is true, imagine an Australia with only half its present population. Would wages be much different? Or imagine an Australia with the population it has now, but cut in two along a line separating Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania from NSW, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Each half would have roughly half Australia’s present population, but would its wages change much?

The Productivity Commission examined every piece of international evidence it could and found only “small (either positive or negative) effects”. Its own Australian modelling found only a “negligible” impact overall, but allowed for the possibility that immigration would make some workers worse off and some better off.

​In the United States, leading immigration economist George Borjas has found persuasive evidence that it’s the least skilled who have been made the worst off and the most skilled the best off. But when Australian National University economists Robert Breunig, Nathan Deutscher and Hang Thi To set out to replicate his work in Australia they found no such thing. Which isn’t surprising. The US immigration program is skewed towards low-skilled arrivals, while the Australian program is skewed towards the high end.

They examined 40 different skill groups and found “no evidence” that immigration damaged the labour market outcomes of pre-existing Australians.

“If anything, there is some evidence for small positive associations,” they wrote.

It shouldn’t be surprising. Migrants bring with them, or make, money, which they use to buy houses, start businesses and educate their children. They employ people.

What if we don’t want all that activity? What if we want a more peaceful life with fewer traffic jams and shorter commutes?

It’s a future we would be denying would-be migrants, who often come from places far more crowded than Australia. That there are places worse than Australia suggests that Australia isn’t yet populated enough compared with the rest of the world. Anyone who gets out of our cities and looks at our coastline will have to agree.

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
amp.smh.com.au/national/there-s-a-case-for-immigration-and-it-s-not-about-us-20180314-p4z4bk.html

By Daniel McCulloch

​Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wants to help white South African farmers come to Australia.
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Australia is investigating what visas can be offered to white South African farmers who are facing violence and land seizures at home.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton believes the farmers deserve "special attention" and need help from a "civilised country" like Australia.

"If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it's a horrific circumstance they face," Mr Dutton told News Corp on Wednesday.

"We have the potential to help some of these people that are being persecuted."

He has directed the Home Affairs Department to explore whether the farmers can be accepted into Australia through refugee, humanitarian or other visas, including the in-country persecution visa category.

"I do think on the information that I've seen, people do need help, and they need help from a civilised country like ours," Mr Dutton said.

The minister said it was clear the farmers in question wanted to work hard and contribute to countries like Australia.
"We want people who want to come here, abide by our laws, integrate into our society, work hard, not lead a life on welfare," he said.
​
"And I think these people deserve special attention and we're certainly applying that special attention now."

​Mr Dutton suggested an announcement could be made soon.

"We're just looking at the moment at what might be feasible and hopefully we'll make an announcement in due course," he said

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/peter-dutton-looks-to-help-persecuted-white-south-african-farmers-20180314-p4z4el.html

​By Cara Waters

Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has said the federal government migration policies may force his software company Atlassian to move its global headquarters away from Australia to attract talent.
Appearing in Melbourne before the Senate's Select Committee on the Future of Work and Workers on Tuesday, the co-founder of Atlassian warned that changes to living-away-from-home allowances and recent 457 visa changes are hurting Australia's tech industry.

Atlassian co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes had a blunt warning before the Future of Work and Workers hearing.
Photo: Louie Douvi

Technology's growth

"Technology is already the biggest industry in the world, it is now well past finance and pulling away," Mr Cannon-Brookes told the select committee. "We have a pretty big decision as a country if we want a seat on that rocketship or not. Do we want to be a primary manufacturer of technology or not?"

Mr Cannon-Brookes said Australia generates about 1 per cent of the world's gross domestic product and to continue our wealth and prosperity it needs to be a primary producer of 1 per cent of the world's technology.
"We are not even close to that today," he said. 

'Blacksmiths of the future'Mr Cannon- Brookes said the future of work is changing quickly in Australia. 
"There will be massive job disruption," he said. "I kind of hate being Chicken Little and trying to scare people but it seems to be the only way." 

Mr Cannon-Brookes said driverless cars are already on the road in the United States and will revolutionise Australia's transport sector, with drivers set to be "the blacksmiths of the future".

"I have four kids, I don't believe that any of them will ever learn to drive a car - and my oldest kid has just turned seven," he said.

​Mr Cannon-Brookes said Uber and other taxi services and food delivery services would all be automated in the future.
"I would be less worried personally about regulating the gig economy in the next 10 years [but more about] is there going to be anyone working there in 10 years time?," he said. 

Mr Cannon-Brookes said history suggests that jobs which will be gained through technological disruption are not going to be filled with the people who lose the jobs.

"That led to lots of social unrest and lots of problems in society," he said. "We can see that coming. I can tell you it's going to come and its going to be very painful if we don't plan for it." 

TalentMr Cannon-Brookes said lack of technology talent is an issue for Australia.
​
While Australian technology graduates are highly sought after, Mr Cannon Brookes said "our best ship off overseas."

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
amp.smh.com.au/business/small-business/mike-cannon-brookes-warns-atlassian-may-leave-australia-20180313-p4z44c.html

​The day after Priya’s visa expired, she, her husband and daughters were woken at 5am and forcibly taken 1,500km away

The close-knit community of Biloela in central Queensland has been shocked by an early morning Australian Border Force raid on a Sri Lankan asylum seeker family – including two Australian-born children – over a visa expired by a single day.

Husband and wife Nadesalingam and Priya and their Australia-born daughters, nine-month-old Dharuniga and two-year-old Kopiga, were forcibly taken, without warning, into immigration detention in Melbourne, more than 1,500km from their home.

The family has been told they face imminent deportation.
​
Australian Border Force officials, accompanied by police and Serco guards arrived at the family’s home at 5am on Monday 5 March. The family said they were given 10 minutes to pack and driven to Gladstone airport where they were flown to Melbourne.

​They remain in immigration detention in Melbourne. They said when they were taken into detention they were told to sign documents assenting to their “voluntary removal” and told if they did not sign them, they would be denied access to a phone, and forcibly deported separately.

On Tuesday afternoon they signed the papers but have said their signatures were not voluntary, but made under unfair duress.

The Guardian put all these allegations to the Department of Home Affairs in a detailed list of questions. A spokesperson said the family’s asylum application had “been comprehensively assessed by the department, various tribunals and courts”.

“They have consistently been found not to meet Australia’s protection obligations.

“Foreign nationals who do not hold a valid visa and who have exhausted all outstanding avenues to remain in Australia are expected to depart voluntarily to their country of citizenship,” the spokesperson said. “Those unwilling to depart voluntarily will be subject to detention and removal from Australia.

“All detention and removal operations are carried out in a way that ensures the safety and security of detainees. Appropriate consideration is given to the needs of any children involved.”

The family had been living in Biloela for four years. Nadesalingam and Priya married in 2014, having arrived separately in Australia by boat seeking asylum in 2012 and 2013, in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war.

Nadesalingam had links to the former separatist army, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Former cadre face continued persecution in Sri Lanka, international observers such at the UN and Amnesty say.

Nadesalingam’s application for protection has been rejected by Australia, and his appeal options extinguished. Legal avenues remain open for Priya to appeal against her protection application rejection.

In their years in Australia, Nadesalingam and Priya had built a life and a family. Nadesalingam worked at the Biloela meatworks.

Priya’s bridging visa expired on 4 March but she was in regular communication with a case worker from the Department of Home Affairs before and after that date to have it renewed. She said she had been told she would be receiving a new visa by mail from the department.

Residents of Biloela took to social media to express their support for the family, and their shock at their sudden removal. The community has started a change.org appeal asking that they be allowed to stay.

“Omg, these are just a lovely family, have them in my prayers for a speedy and safe return to our community here in Biloela,” Michelle Horrocks wrote.
​
Rex Gruspe lived next door to the family, and said they were good neighbours.“We happened to see each other when I [was] going to work and Priya taking the children for a walk, Nadesh is always happy to help when he saw me doing DIY in the house.”

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/12/small-town-rallies-after-asylum-seeker-family-carried-off-in-dawn-raid

Indian migrant Navjot Singh Kailay moved to Melbourne from Adelaide last year that was his home for close to a decade. For Mr Kailay- a migration agent, slow economic growth was the primary reasons for leaving the state.

He says many permanent residents with a state nomination from South Australia move to other parts of the country, particularly Sydney and Melbourne, looking for better opportunities.
​
“The current policies in SA are such that are designed to attract only business migration and not retaining skilled migrants in the state,” says Mr Kailay.

The Federal Government says, to increase job opportunities, it will start a new visa to foster entrepreneurship and improve the state’s economy before its national roll out next year.

The Federal Government has given an undertaking to South Australian Liberals to pilot this visa from South Australia.

"The Turnbull Government is focussed on increasing job opportunities and standards of living for Australians and we are doing this by fostering business growth and investment in Australia," Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said.

Under the proposed visa, foreign entrepreneurs and investors with an innovative idea and a supporting business plan will be able to apply for a temporary visa to establish their venture in Australia.

The existing entrepreneur visa requires a mandatory capital backing of $200,000 which will not be required for the proposed visa.

The applicants’ business proposals will be examined by the State or Federal Government authorities before granting a temporary visa.

Entrepreneurs who are successful in establishing their business venture in Australia will become eligible to apply for permanent residence.
​
"Encouraging seed-stage entrepreneurs to take forward innovative ideas in Australia will assist in growing the jobs of the future,” said Mr Dutton.

Revealing further details of the proposed visa, the South Australian Liberal leader Steven Marshall said all applicants must be under 45 years of age and have vocational level English which is band 5 in each four components of the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS).

“We are confident that this arrangement can lead to participants applying for permanent residence in South Australia as they develop their business plans into successful enterprises creating new companies and jobs in our state,” said Mr Stevens.

“These arrangements will also encourage more investment in those sectors of our economy with the greatest capacity to grow, including advanced manufacturing and defence technology following the Federal Government’s decision to centre the naval shipbuilding program in South Australia.”

While it’s not clear if the introduction of the visa is subject to the Liberals winning the state election, Mr Kailay says whether or not this measure will succeed in retaining talented individuals in the state would depend on the criteria for progressing to permanent residency which are yet to be unveiled.
​
“At the moment, it’s more of an election promise. The details would tell us how high or low the bar is set in terms of a business’ job creation and turnover,” he says.

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/03/05/australia-introduce-new-visa-boost-economy-jobs

By: Leesha McKenny, Helen Chen and Jarni Blakkarly
Presented by: Ruchika Talwar
Published on: Friday, March 2, 2018 - 16:32

For a new Chinese international student we will call Lee -- and whose voice we will distort -- there was more stress than just her exams soon after she arrived in Australia to study at university. 

Shortly after starting out in Melbourne, she found herself pregnant.

"It was a very difficult and confusing decision. I had no idea whether to abort it or not." 

Back in her Chinese homeland, Lee says, there was little sexual-health education.

"It's only in the textbooks, and that's all. The teachers may give some brief introduction, but they never touch the details." 

She also had to navigate a foreign health system once she found herself pregnant. 

In an attempt to help other international students, Lee decided to blog about her experience in getting an abortion in Australia on the popular Chinese app Weibo.  

A record number of international students studied in Australia last year, more than 620,000. 

Almost one in three of those students came from China. 

India, Nepal and Malaysia were also leading source countries.

Phillip Goldstone, the medical director at Marie Stopes, a network of abortion clinics, says the clinics see thousands of international students each year.

"There are around 4,000 international students that access abortion services around Australia, not all through our clinics. Approximately 5 per cent of our patients are international students." 

And with pregnancy rarely covered by overseas medical insurance, he says the cost of an abortion can blow out for students.

"From roughly a thousand dollars for most international ... most women without a Medicare card who are accessing a termination of pregnancy." 

With many students coming from countries without a high level of sexual education, the only information they are receiving comes from the universities. 

Former Indian international student Heena Sinha says many of her friends had little sexual-health knowledge upon arrival in Australia.

"None of them were able to talk to me about, and none of them were able to answer, my questions when I was doing a project and trying to ask, you know, 'Do you know about any sexual-health clinics?' or 'Do you know about STIs?'* Some of them don't even know what STIs are."  

The Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health's Alison Coelho says there are better ways universities could approach the issue.

"It's no point providing lots of sexual education in Orientation Week. They'll forget. And they are so overwhelmed with settling in a new country. I believe that, if we have different points within that first 12 months, that we would actually see a huge reduction in unplanned pregnancy and lower the rates of sexually transmissible infections." 

Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robinson suggests there is a role to play for other groups on campus.

"This is not just a responsibility for university administrations and university management, but it's also something that student groups and student guilds and even the international communities within which universities sit all have a really important role to play here."

* STIs are Sexually Transmissible Infections 

FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/punjabi/en/audiotrack/many-international-students-are-facing-unwanted-pregnancies

In various sandstone cloisters around the nation, highly-paid vice-chancellors are wondering where their next bonus might come from.

A key cog in their money-making machines has just been removed with transitions from international student visas to 457 visas halving last year.

The trend he identified in the September quarter has continued - 457 visa applications for the six month period were down by 34 per cent on the previous corresponding period.
Photo: Robert Peet

The number of annual permanent visas has not changed, but to whom they might be granted has.
​
​With the carrot of residency being dangled, the quality of Australian degrees has not mattered so much as long as the rich fees kept rolling in. Hence the infamous pressure on university staff to pass sub-standard foreign students.

With the visa carrot removed, our universities are playing catchup to market their courses on quality instead.

The plunge in 457 applications has occured before the government's new and tougher temporary work visa system starts on March 1. The immediate impact has been felt in the workplace.

Sherrell notes applications for 457 visas in the ICT and construction industries are down by 41 and 44 per cent, respectively.
​
"These are substantial changes to visa trends, unseen in recent years," Sherrell tweeted.

​The universities are likely to see impact in next year's enrolments - something that is not coming as a surprise to them.

In an off-the-record conversation, the university industry has admitted knowing the problem was coming, along with the realisation that quality shortcuts would come back to bite them.

The fees foreign students pay to attend our universities are the core of our third-biggest export industry, behind iron ore and tourism.

The law of unintended consequences is always at work.

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK FOR FULL STORY:
www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-unis-hit-the-panic-button-as-government-pulls-foreign-student-pin-20180228-p4z23b.html