Kirk Yan: Head of the Melbourne branch of Newstarsec Education & Migration and a licensed Australian migration agent, with several years of experience and in-depth research in interpreting migration policy and forecasting change. Editor-in-chief of the Australian Migration Weekly, affectionately known by students as “K-shen” (the migration guru).
With the market team chasing me a few times now, saying it’s that time of the financial year again to write the wrap-up report, I won’t break with tradition — so here are a few words today. Looking back over some of my notes from the past year felt like a different lifetime, and I realised this is already my tenth year since I came to Melbourne to start my business.
This time last year, Covid was behind us and Australia’s leadership had been reshuffled with new blood, but the policies still hadn’t loosened in any concrete way. Whether for invitations or processing, it felt like the darkest hour before the dawn. Thankfully, holding the line was rewarded with spring blossoming at last: from August last year the Subclass 189 invitations restarted, the states sharply increased their state-nomination quotas, and from September the states began issuing invitations one after another. Parent migration and other visas, which had been almost frozen during Covid, also saw quotas greatly increased and processing pushed forward. The backlog of skilled-migration visas also began to be processed and granted in large numbers — Subclass 189/190/491, and of course the toughest of all, the Subclass 887 — and this year they all finally bore fruit after the hard going.
On the work front, both the Melbourne and Tasmania offices welcomed quite a few new colleagues this year, and the two offices held a joint team-building event for the first time. Thank you to our long-serving staff for sticking with us! And welcome to the new faces joining this “deep pit” — the offices are now filled with more laughter and chatter. With all of you here, the WeChat accounts I’d been adding year on year were finally trimmed down by a few this year, and for the first time in years I could roam the mountains and rivers for weeks with just a single phone.
On content, over the year there were 272 Xiaohongshu posts, dozens of livestreams, more than ten thousand followers, and we kept to our value-packed approach. Even at 1,000 words per article I still worry I’m saying too little. The livestreams averaged two to three hundred supporters watching, with peaks of over a thousand viewers. Special thanks to the market and IT team — every time breaking news hit, you were busy front and back getting everything ready. In an era where format may matter even more than content, your work let my dry, wordy pieces reach far more people; please just forgive me for the occasional wilfully skipped livestream.
As for me personally, this year I did my first-ever bungee jump, and over this financial year I climbed two snow mountains — including my first 5,000-metre peak, Mount Siguniang. The flag I planted for myself at the start of Covid, to hike one mountain every month, is still being carried; this year, besides climbing snow mountains for the first time, I also hiked through the tropical rainforest in Queensland. Tasmania, with its stunning coastlines and alpine lakes, always leaves me longing to stay.
At home, our family welcomed little Kirby this year; Connie, the eldest, can now demolish her dad at video games every single round, and Ellie, the second, has started primary school and become a class monitor. Thank you to my family for putting up with me and supporting me every day, letting me work and study with no worries at the back of my mind, and even take off on the odd spur-of-the-moment mountain hike.
Finally, thank you to every client and partner who has quietly supported us — it’s because of you that we keep pressing forward! I have no grand wishes for the new year, just to keep reminding myself never to forget why I entered this field in the first place: to help more clients secure their invitations and visas smoothly. I hope to keep moving forward together with the Melbourne and Tasmania teams. May everyone at home be healthy and safe, and may the little ones keep growing up happy. As for me, I’ll keep my curiosity about the world alive and read a few more of the books I love. In the new year, let’s take on a 6,000-metre peak! Maybe give Yuzhu Peak a try?
If you have any questions about Australian migration, you’re welcome to add Kirk on WeChat to get in touch directly.
