Key Points
- Many temporary visa holders living in Australia are struggling to get a permanent visa.
- Temporary visa holders make up seven per cent of the Australian workforce, says a report.
- 'Granting more visas to those onshore will not boost migration numbers.'
After living in Melbourne for more than 14 years, Krishna Kumar thinks of Australia as his home.
However, the 37-year-old who came here on a student visa in October 2008 fears that it may take him a couple more years before he can realise his Australian dream.
A network analyst by profession, Mr Kumar applied for a permanent visa in 2018 through the employer nomination scheme, which resulted in a refusal in 2020. He later lodged an appeal for review with the Administrative Appeals Tribunals (AAT), which was also rejected in July 2020.
“I was asked to leave the country by September 2020, but I couldn’t go back to India because there were hardly any flights due to the COVID lockdown.
“I was keen to apply for another student visa, but I was barred by Section 48, which prevented me from applying for another visa onshore. This is when I applied for a protection visa, and I am currently waiting for a decision,” Mr Kumar told SBS Punjabi.
According to Grattan Institute, there were 1.5 million temporary visa holders in Australia in January 2022. Source: AAP
'It's a been a difficult and daunting journey'
Temporary migrants include working holidaymakers, skilled temporary residents, New Zealand citizens, many international students, and seasonal workers, among others.
According to the Grattan Institute, there were 1.5 million temporary visa holders in Australia in January 2022, compared with nearly 2 million before the pandemic hit in 2019.
The Indian migrant, who has spent the better part of his adult life in Australia hopping from one visa to another, said it has been a very difficult and daunting journey.
“It is impractical for a person who has been living in a country for over 14 years to move back home or to another country and restart his life.
“A partner visa applicant who comes here by marrying a permanent resident or a citizen automatically qualifies for permanent residency within four years. While people like me who are skilled and have been living, working and paying taxes in Australia are pushed back time and again,” Mr Kumar rued.
Better pathways to permanent residency
Ishvinder Singh Maan Credit: Supplied
This is while many skilled and qualified workers onshore are struggling to secure permanent visas, which they are given based on a points system calculated based on factors including their education, work experience, English language skills and age.
Ishvinder Singh Maan also came to Australia on a student visa eight years ago to pursue a diploma in IT, after which he enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in the same field two years later, which he could not complete due to personal reasons.
The 26-year-old then enrolled for a diploma in business in 2020 while he waited for his student visa. But then COVID came, and the decision on his visa got delayed.
Mr Maan said he had no choice but to pursue another advanced diploma in business to buy time until he could hear from the Department of Home Affairs.
“But in early 2020, I received a rejection on my visa because the department felt I wasn’t a genuine temporary entrant, a decision that was later overturned in the AAT,” he told SBS Punjabi.
Mr Maan is now a valid student visa holder who is busy completing his advanced diploma alongside studying to become a nurse so he can have a guaranteed pathway to permanent residency.
He feels the government must invest in temporary visa holders already living here and should offer them easier permanent residency pathways instead of finding ways to attract skilled migrants from overseas.
It makes more sense to offer jobs and permanent residency to people like us who are already working and contributing to the Australian workforce and are paying taxes.
“We are more familiar with the working and social culture than anyone coming from overseas. I think we should get some advantage over offshore applicants,” Mr Maan added.
Adelaide-based migration agent Mark Glazbrook said granting visas to onshore temporary migrants would not help address the current skills shortages.
“Granting more visas to those onshore will not increase migration numbers or participation as they have already been counted in Net Overseas Migration (NOM) figures.
“In addition to this, as many are already working in their occupations or a closely related occupation, granting visas to onshore applicants does not help to address workforce shortages as these people are already here,” he explained.
Mr Glazbrook added that offshore applicants, on the other hand, can aid the government towards plugging labour shortages in areas of demand.
Gundeep Kaur with her husband Navdeep Singh Credit: Supplied
She got her master’s degree in accounting from Charles Sturt University in Melbourne in 2018 but had to study for another postgraduate degree after she failed to secure a state nomination for the skilled nominated visa (Subclass 190), a PR pathway for skilled workers whose occupations are in demand in their state.
“I have wasted so many years of my life struggling to get a permanent visa which I could have dedicated towards my career and personal life,” Ms Kaur said.
In its recent report, the Grattan Institute found that a lower share of temporary skilled workers are transitioning to permanent visas compared to recent years, likely driven by the fact that fewer temporary skilled workers are eligible for permanent residency than in the past.
"While about half of all temporary skilled visa-holders transition to a permanent visa historically, many occupations have a much more restricted pathway today, and fewer will transition to permanent residency in the future," the public policy think tank stated in its report.
The point-based skilled migration in Australia is highly competitive, says migration agent Mark Glazbrook. Credit: Архив
“The process is extremely competitive with many more people wanting to apply for a visa than there are places available which means that in most cases, only those applicants that have extremely high points and are genuinely working in their nominated occupations (for more than 12 months in most cases) will be able to apply for a 189 or 190 Australian skilled migration visa,” he said.
But with the government ramping up processing times, particularly for skilled migrants, things have started to look up for many onshore applicants as well.
Melbourne-based migration agent Navjot Kailay said that in his line of work, he has witnessed an approval rate for applicants at 65 points, something he said was "unimaginable" a year ago.
"The overall trends look very positive for skilled migrants. For the last few rounds, we’ve seen a huge surge in invitations. On 8 December 2022, the Department of Home Affairs issued 35,000 invitations which show how desperate the government is to address the skill shortages," he said.
Ms Kaur is one of those fortunate few who have recently received an invite under the skilled independent (Subclass 189) category.
