March 2025 wrap-up

• • As the seasons begin to turn, we were very pleased to see more grants for our clients in the SID and TSS (subclass 482), ENS (subclass 186) and Resident Return (subclass 155) visa categories along with a number of Standard Business Sponsorship approvals.

• • Our solicitors attended the Law Council of Australia’s Immigration Law conference earlier in the month. Some of the key takeaways from the conference included the Department’s focus on reducing processing times especially for skilled visas, and their attempts to clear the backlog of Temporary Skill Shortage (‘TSS’) visas. Many clients who lodged a TSS visa application last year are still waiting for a decision, and the backlog has decreased from 51,566 outstanding applications on 6 December 2024 to 33,372 as of 28 February 2025. We are certainly seeing this in practice, with recent TSS grants for clients who had been waiting over 6 months. The government is trying to balance this against an unanticipated increase in SID visa applications, with approximately 30,000 applications lodged between 7 December 2024 and 28 February 2025:
    
    > Core Skills stream – 22,050 lodgements and 5,004 decisions
    
    > Specialist Skills stream – 3,764 lodgements and 2,161 decisions
    > Labour Agreement stream – 2,515 lodgements and 499 decisions
    
    It is clear that the demand for employer sponsored temporary visas has not changed, regardless of the changes to the program.

• • With the 2025 federal election date now set by the sitting Albanese government, migration has once again become a major talking point of each candidate’s campaign, with many questions and issues being raised by politicians, journalists and constituents alike. The current Labor Government’s 2025-2026 Budget papers, released on 25 March 2025, project a decrease in overall migration to Australia from 335,000 this migration year to 260,000 in the 2025-26 migration year, and a further fall to 225,000 in the 2026-27 migration year. These figures are an indication that net migration levels will return to a pre-pandemic level following the post-COVID surge in the coming years. The opposition leader, The Hon. Peter Dutton MP, has been critical of the migration surge under Labor’s leadership, suggesting that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his party are guilty of what he called a “Big Australia policy”, which has exacerbated the current housing crisis. Mr Dutton has been open in his party’s call for lower immigration. In all, it seems as though in the lead-up to the next federal election, both parties are pushing for less migration overall, meaning that there may be fewer opportunities for many seeking to study, work and live in Australia in the immediate future. Given the distinct lack of detail around migration in the budget, it is hard to determine what the next 12 months may look like under either party’s leadership.

• • As anticipated, from 1 July 2025 skilled visa income thresholds will increase by 4.6% to align with the Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (‘AWOTE’) figures. This change, which impacts the Core Skills Income Threshold (‘CSIT’), the Specialist Skills Income Threshold (‘SSIT’) and the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (‘TSMIT’), will apply to the salary thresholds of a number of skilled work visas including the Skills in Demand (‘SID’) (subclass 482) visa, the Employer Nomination Scheme (‘ENS’) (subclass 186) visa and the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (subclass 494) visa. Any business or sponsoring entity looking to sponsor staff in any of these visa categories after 1 July 2025 will be required to meet the new salary thresholds. If your business needs clarity on the forthcoming change or if you need to assess your options before 1 July 2025, please contact us directly.

That’s the Nomos wrap-up for March. See you next month!