Last nightthe 2023-24 Budget was handed down, all we knew was that there would be 190,000 PR places (missed it? see: Australia’s 2023-24 Budget | 190,000 PR places, 70% to the skilled stream! Visa fees rise sharply after 1 July!), and that 70% would go to the skilled stream. First thing this morning the Department of Home Affairs website updated the detailed allocation of these 190,000 places!

For comparison, see

A few key dates to keep in mind:

Australia’s financial year runs from 1 July this year to 30 June next year

In the discussion below:

the last FY is 2021-22

the current FY is 2022-23

the new FY is 2023-24

186 – Employer-sponsored

The Labor government’s support for employer sponsorship goes without saying. The previously announced reforms before the end of 2023 will make it easier for Subclass 482 holders to transition to permanent residency (Subclass 482 does not use a quota place; the place is used when transitioning to Subclass 186, or under the 186 Direct Entry stream), and now, within a relatively limited space, an additional 1,825 places have been added to Subclass 186.

So for everyone with 1.5-2 years of work experience, whether onshore or offshore, in the new FY really do not forget the employer-sponsored pathway

189 – Points-tested

Let’s go through the changes to Subclass 189 in detail. Subclass 189 has several streams; the one everyone cares most about is the invitation-issuing points-tested stream.

The good news for the new FY is that the 189 points-tested stream is actually allocated more places

Because of reforms to the NZ stream itself, it no longer draws on the 189 grant quota, so the 189 points-tested stream actually has an extra 4,575 places available, bringing the total to 30,175 – more than this FY

The relatively less welcome news for the new FY is that visa applications not finalised this FY will use up new-FY places, and this FY’s backlog may be double that of last FY.

Last FY’s backlog of pending 189 applications was only around 10,000, so the number of 189 grants “left over” for this FY was relatively large. With the floodgates opened on Subclass 189 this FY, the visa-application backlog exceeded 30,000 by the end of February, and is estimated to still be above 20,000 today.

So the situation for Subclass 189 in the new FY may be similar to this FY, but we hope the Department issues invitations steadily and evenly – not booming for half the FY and silent for the other half. As a matter of advice, state nomination can remain your base case, with Subclass 189 as a Plan B that delivers a pleasant surprise.

The new-FY grant quotas for 190 and 491 are basically similar to this FY, at around 60,000 (Subclass 494 uses very few places), so the overall state-nomination allocation is expected to be fairly similar too.

What may change is which states get more and which get fewer – for instance, will WA and Tasmania both explicitly request more places? Victoria’s 190 program has been wild this year – can it keep leading the pack on its own? Queensland, the third-largest state, has been quietly low-key for a long time; with the investor-migration downturn continuing, will it want more skilled migrants?

What will each state ask for? How will the Commonwealth ultimately allocate the state-nomination places? We won’t know until around 1 July.

Business and investor migration

There’s no way around it – just like Subclass 189 in years past, without government support it stays out in the cold, making it the biggest loser of the new FY’s quotas.As with 190 and 491, the reduction in grant places means state-nomination places will not be plentiful either, so in the new FY business and investor migration really is going to be a scramble – prepare early!

GTI

GTI staying at 5,000 is a slight surprise, but a welcome one. It also shows the Labor government still wants to develop GTI properly, and to reform it for the better. Global talent applicants who have already lodged, or are preparing to lodge, still have a chance!

Parent migration

The family-stream total and the figures for each subcategory are exactly the same this FY and the new FY. On parent migration: it remains at 8,500 places. If the previous 4:1 ratio of contributory to queued places holds, the contributory stream has around 6,800 places.With 8,500 places this FY, parent migration has picked up slightly and is moving faster.

But a waiting period of 10+ years for new lodgements is now a certainty, and we have analysed many times that a very large increase in parent-migration places is unlikely.Once you have PR, you should still lodge for your parents as early as possible – especially as visa fees are rising again in the new FY, by at least 6%…