Proposed amendments to SIV significant investor visa and 457 skilled work visa programs
During an address to the National Press Club held in Canberra last Wednesday, 10 September 2014, the Hon. Scott Morrison provided an update on the Government’s position in relation to the 457 skilled work visa and 188/888 significant investor visa programmes.
Below are some key points from Minister Morrison’s address.
Significant Investor Visa Program
The Government will be supporting proposals to prevent the ‘recycling’ of investment funds by requiring complying investments to remain unencumbered during the 4 year period in which a visa applicant is required to hold the complying investment. Whether there will be any exceptions to this rule and whether the rule will have retrospective application to existing SIV visa holders remain to be seen. It is expected that the Government will release further details about this proposal and other comments on the SIV programme in the weeks ahead.
In the interim, managers of current complying managed investment scheme products that allow visa applicants to leverage from the investment made in the scheme may be required to undertake a review of their offering in light of Minister Morrison’s latest comments.
457 Visa Program
Minister Morrison provided the Government’s thoughts on the just released report by the panel conducting the Independent Review into Integrity in the Subclass 457 programme. Minister Morrison said the report of 22 recommendations was ‘balanced and measured’ but did not specifically provide any details on the implementation of the recommendations. The key recommendations arising from the review were:
the abolishment of labour market testing;
a reduction to the market salary rate exemption threshold from $250,000 to $180,000;
freezing the temporary skilled migration income threshold at $53,900 p.a. for at least 2 years with the possibility of a 10% reduction to the threshold;
English language requirement to be relaxed by requiring an average IELTS score of 5 (currently, applicants are required to score at least 5 across all four competencies); and
more robust compliance requirements and banning employees from paying employers to sponsor them.
For Minister Morrison’s full address please see http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2014/sm217736.htm