Australian Government releases New Ministerial Direction 100
The Minister for Home Affairs the Hon Clare O’Neil has released new direction 100 on 28 October 2022 to prioritize the skilled visa applications. The Ministerial Direction streamlines the visa application process and will result in more effective visa processing for skilled applicants and their sponsors across industries. This will enable the Department of Home Affairs to process more skilled applications more quickly and respond to labor market demands.
Additionally, this modification will benefit small companies looking to hire labour from abroad. It simplifies the process and speeds up processing for all professions.
It gives priority to applications for teaching and healthcare jobs, as well as applications for overseas permanent and provisional positions.
The Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL), which required time-consuming and difficult tests, is eliminated by this directive. These added to the backlog of requests for skilled visas and were only required while travel restrictions were in force. The PMSOL was mentioned in previous Ministerial Directions No. 96 and 97 and is no longer relevant in the new No. 100.
The new government policy gives trusted employers and important companies that boost economic productivity, known as Accredited Sponsors, preference across all industries. When these applications are processed quickly, the Department has more capacity to handle additional applications.
The Global Talent and Business Innovation and Investment Programs have been deprioritized as part of the reduction in the number of priorities. Visa requests for these programmes will still be processed quickly in accordance with the annual migration program’s planning levels.
All nominations for skilled visas, visa applications that have not yet been decided, and newly submitted applications are subject to the new priorities.
Source: Skilled visa processing priorities (homeaffairs.gov.au)
