The New Visa Priorities - Ministerial Direction 100

Immigration News

On the 28^th of October, the Minister for Migration released Ministerial Direction 100, which confirms Labour’s visa processing priorities. This works towards the election promises of reducing processing times and helping clear the visa logjam while prioritising the most in demand occupations.

The latest stats from the Department of Home Affairs show the department is rapidly getting through the massive accumulation of pending visas. Over 2.75 million visas have been processed in the last five months thanks to two hundred and sixty more processing staff. Over this time 43,000 temporary skilled and 47,000 permanently skilled visas have been finalised.

So what are the new visa priorities for the Department of Home Affairs in 2022?

Health and education are specifically mentioned at the top of the priority list. Onshore and offshore provisional and permanent applications will be targeted for fast processing.
Processes will be less complicated, so more applications can be approved, (especially for critical visas like the Temporary Skill Shortage visa) to get skilled workers into the workforce quicker. This is hot on the heels of the Department no longer requiring health examinations for a number of temporary visas.
The Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL) has been thrown out, as it no longer accurately reflects the skills shortages in Australia. Now all skilled visas (even occupations that were not given priority status) will be processed faster thanks to increased staff numbers.
Global Talent visas along with the much-maligned Business Innovation and Investment visas are no longer a priority and will be processed in line with the annual Migration Program.

These new priorities will apply to all skilled visa nominations that are still to be processed as well as all new applications.