Immigration Minister Andrew Giles delivered a speech last week at the Sydney Policy Lab, focusing primarily on visa processing issues.

He criticised the previous government’s irresponsible management of visa processing, which left a backlog of nearly one million applications,with more than 330,000 bridging visa holders currently in the system,when, under a properly functioning processing system, the figure should normally sit between40,000 and 80,000.

This is more than enough evidence that the entire visa processing system had becomea broken system, leaving everyone involved in a state of uncertainty, with wait times stretching from months to years, and most bridging visa holders not knowing when their case would be finalised (when their visa would be granted).

The current Labor Government is committed to resolving the backlog.

Addressing the application backlog has been one of the government’s most pressing priorities in the three-plus months since the election.

Visa processing is technical work,involving the application of a complex body of legal standards to millions of government decisions each year. For nine years, this work was consistently undervalued by the previous government.

Improved resource allocation:

Since the election,the Department has brought on 180 new staff, with another 140 currently in training and a further 150 working in an overtime pool.

Over these three months,the visa application backlog has been reduced from nearly one million to approximately 900,000.

That works out to more than 30,000 applications processed per month. Looking back over these three months, we have seen a ‘Subclass 491/190/489 old backlog clearance wave’, a ‘Subclass 485 grants downpour’, ‘accelerated student visa processing’, and ‘lightning-fast employer-sponsored Subclass 482 grants for occupations such as accountants and chefs’, and more recently we have also seen Subclass 189/491/190 applications lodged in 2020 receiving requests for further information —although not every applicant has received their grant, many more people have finally had their cases finalised.

Andrew Giles said we will clear the backlog of applications (and return to a normal, reasonable level),but this will not happen overnight this week — we will continue to work on thisso as to provide the certainty of basic public administration that people (applicants) deserve.

Looking ahead, there is more work to be done.

The visa subclasses most people are watching most closely — Subclass 189, 190, 491, 489, and 887 —

comparing backlog figures between late April and late July

and monthly grant numbers for the first half of 2022,

Subclass 190 and 491both saw an upward trend in the first half of this year, with a strong surge particularly in May and June — which is why, as of the end of July, the Subclass 190 backlog had fallen by more than 1,500. The Subclass 491 backlog is still growing, but the pace has slowed noticeably, even though it still has the largest outstanding backlog.

189Prior to this August round, the New Zealand Stream accounted for most of the visa application backlog. In April, 1,000 invitations were issued; between May and July, 1,400 grants were made — a respectable pace. Of course, since the invitations mainly went to the highest-priority occupations in critical shortage during COVID, applicants in essentially every category have been granted visas within a few months.

Subclass 489,the remaining applications in that category have stillnot received serious attention — with no new applications accepted for this subclass, the backlog has remained stuck at 4,000+, and most applicants are offshore.

Subclass 887,is another seriously neglected category. Fortunately, grants increased slightly in July, but at this pace of accumulation, it is only a matter of time before the backlog catches up with that of 190/491. Subclass 887 is being processed — just very slowly,roughly one or two grants per one or two weeks, in lodgement order.Last week we saw a grant for an application lodged in August 2020.

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The issue of minimum salary thresholds for migrants

This weekend we also noticed the following news item:

The Business Council of Australia (BCA)is calling for the annual migration intake to be raised to 220,000 people per yearfor two years,with two-thirds of places allocated to skilled migrants, before reverting to 190,000 per financial year from 2025 onwards.

They have recommendedthat any job paying more than AUD 90,000 should be eligible for a temporary skilled visa,with a threshold of AUD 100,000 for permanent skilled migration visas.If earnings fall below this threshold, obtaining a visa may still be possible, but it would depend on whether the occupation appears on an occupation list.

They also called for an improved labour market testing framework, enhanced compliance in regions or occupations at risk of exploitation, and exemptions from certain requirements for ‘trusted’ employers.

This is a submission they released ahead of the summit,and it is clear that the BCA’s recommendations are primarily directed at employer sponsorship.

Unions and employers had previously reached an initial consensus thatmigration should be increased to 200,000, and that the burdensome occupation lists and labour market testing should be replaced with a faster approach — with the goal of bringing workers from overseas more efficiently.

As a condition of agreeing to raise the migration quota to 200,000,the ACTU has also proposed that the minimum salary threshold be set at AUD 91,000.

However, there remains considerable room for negotiation on this threshold. For those who have worked in Australia,seeing AUD 91,000 cited as a ‘minimum’ threshold may well strike many as unrealistic.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), upon seeing this figure of AUD 91,000, immediately commented thatthis would ‘overnight kill migration programmes in many sectors’,but considered that raising the threshold to AUD 60,000 would be ‘more realistic’.

The Federal Government’s position is that it welcomes discussions between unions and employers on wages (not just for migrants), while the Greens believe the Federal Government should take the lead in pushing for legislation at the summit to immediately raise wages for low-paid workers and workers in female-dominated industries.

Migration information sharing and Q&A group