The Northern Territory Department of Trade Business and Innovation has temporarily suspended applications for Northern Territory nomination for Subclass 489 and Subclass 190, visas where the applicants are not in the Northern Territory, ie offshore, until 1 July 2017.

The new temporary sponsored parent visa will be introduced in November 2017, with 15,000 visas to be made available annually. This visa will allow the temporary stay of sponsored parents in Australia for periods of up to three or five years. The visa may be renewed from outside Australia to

The 2017-18 Budget handed down tonight included the following elements impacting the immigration program.

Visa Application Charges (VAC) increase: Indexation of visa application charges will occur from 1 July 2017. All current VACs will be indexed annually in line with the forecast Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Indexation applies only to the 1st instalment component of the VAC,

The recent announcements regarding changes to Australia’s skilled visa programmes which came into effect from 19 April 2017 currently have no impact on the labour agreement programme.

At this time:

existing labour agreements remain in effect;
existing visa holders are not impacted unless they apply for another visa impacted by the changes outside of the labour agreement programme;
new

from 19 April 2017 – 216 occupations removed and 59 others restricted, 24 occupations restricted to regional Australia, Occupational lists renamed, validity period for occupations on STSOL 2 years.

from 01 July 2017 – English salary exemption $96,400 to be removed, training benchmarks to be changed, mandatory penal clearance certificates.

before 31 December

The 457 visa will be abolished from March 2018. The 457 will be replaced by the Temporary Skills Shortages (TSS) visa from this date.

The TSS visa will have higher requirements than the current 457 visa – in particular:

Minimum of 2 years work experience
Labour Market Testing for most applicants
Higher English for