Western Australia Immigration Matters FY 2024-2025

Ozdrims · August 2023

https://migration.wa.gov.au/news/2023-24-snmp-program-changes

WA State Nomination Migration Program changes for FY 23/24

Ozdrims · August 2023

@RheaMARN1171933 any idea po how this FY year allocation for WA transpired , there was one statement from the minister asking for 10k seats allocation thats double the previous year.

Ozdrims · August 2023

https://www.wa.gov.au/government/media-statements/McGowan-Labor-Government/Targeted-support-to-build-WAs-critical-construction-workforce-20230430

Link to that statement

rpm26 · August 2023

Tama po ba for onshore applicants “interstate” for 491 need din full time contract or work if under WASMOL schedule 2?

Ozdrims · August 2023

@rpm26 said:
Tama po ba for onshore applicants “interstate” for 491 need din full time contract or work if under WASMOL schedule 2?

For 491 there is no req’t for contract of employment

DreamerG · August 2023

https://thewest.com.au/politics/roger-cook/premier-roger-cook-to-urge-federal-government-to-reverse-cuts-to-was-skilled-migrant-allocation-c-11637840

The Premier is calling on the Federal Government to reverse a decision to slash WA’s nominated skilled migrant intake by 70 per cent — saying the workers are “desperately” needed to build new homes and fill a range of jobs.

The Commonwealth has notified the State Government its allocation for the State Nominated Migration Program would be drastically cut from more than 8000 places to just 2350 this financial year.

Part of newspaper, not yet updated to IMMI site. 🙏🏼 reversed for more invites.. current 190 - 1500 invites and 491 - 850 invites

Ozdrims · August 2023

In other news: Cook hits back at PM

nothing official until Immi site post this ,sad news but 🙏🙏🙏 works that the FG will consider MP’s request.
Many if not few will be devastated about this sad news as many interstate migrants had plans moving in WA.
Mga tao dito if magrereact malamang sasabihin : walao weh, cannot make up their mind ah?😂

Ozdrims · August 2023

@DreamerG said:
https://thewest.com.au/politics/roger-cook/premier-roger-cook-to-urge-federal-government-to-reverse-cuts-to-was-skilled-migrant-allocation-c-11637840

The Premier is calling on the Federal Government to reverse a decision to slash WA’s nominated skilled migrant intake by 70 per cent — saying the workers are “desperately” needed to build new homes and fill a range of jobs.

The Commonwealth has notified the State Government its allocation for the State Nominated Migration Program would be drastically cut from more than 8000 places to just 2350 this financial year.

Part of newspaper, not yet updated to IMMI site. 🙏🏼 reversed for more invites.. current 190 - 1500 invites and 491 - 850 invites

From another post in another fb page:

𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚

Premier Roger Cook to urge Federal Government to reverse cuts to WA’s skilled migrant allocation:

𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬
The Premier is calling on the Federal Government to reverse a decision to slash WA’s nominated skilled migrant intake by 70 per cent — saying the workers are “desperately” needed to build new homes and fill a range of jobs. Credit: Michael Wilson/The West Australian

The Commonwealth has notified the State Government its allocation for the State Nominated Migration Program would be drastically cut from more than 8000 places to just 2350 this financial year.

The SNMP allows States to specifically decide which overseas skilled workers they need to fill the local jobs in demand.
But the Albanese Government’s plan to cut WA numbers has prompted the Premier to write a letter to his Federal leader objecting to the shock decision.

“I will always fight for what is best for Western Australia,“ Mr Cook said.
“WA is the economic powerhouse of the nation and we desperately need more skilled workers — not less — to meet the demand being driven by our booming economy, specifically in our housing construction industry but also in key areas like health and hospitality.
“If we want to build more houses then we need more workers.”

WA’s skilled nominated visa allocation will drop from 5350 to 1500, while skilled work regional visas will plummet from 2790 to 850, unless the Cook Government can convince Federal Labor to change its mind.

And the State will get no migrants from the Business Innovation and Investment Program after receiving 40 last financial year, even though applications for this program are at record highs.

Despite the total allocation being slashed by nearly 6000, demand from prospective migrants remains high, with 5000 expressing interest in WA’s Skilled Migrant Employment Register.

The Premier said that while local jobs were his “number one priority”, WA was experiencing a significant uptick in work in the pipeline as well as a backlog of jobs that need to be completed.

“We need a mass injection of skilled workers to get work moving along so we can get more people into homes, more infrastructure built and sustain the highly specialised roles that can’t be filled,” he said. “The Commonwealth needs to review this decision immediately.”

Mr Cook will ask the Federal Government for 10,000 places on the SNMP, the same request made last financial year when 8180 were granted.
It is expected the issue will be raised at a Skills Summit in Perth this week.

The unprecedented demand for workers, particularly in industries such as housing, health and hospitality, continues to be fuelled by a tight local labour market with WA recording an unemployment rate of 3.4 per cent in July — below the national average of 3.7.

The shock SNMP decision by the Federal Government comes in stark contrast to an acute worker shortage which last year saw a Chicken Treat in the Pilbara offer $130,000 for a store manager and a Broome cafe offer a $92,000 barista job.
The State Government implemented a raft of changes in response to make it easier for skilled migrants to come to WA, including scrapping application fees and reducing English standards and expanding the number of occupations to its priority occupation list from 170 to 286.
Then-Premier Mark McGowan globe-trotted from Rome to Doha to spruik the changes, in hopes to fill the roles in a diverse range of occupations — a far cry from when he first became Premier in 2017 and sought to remove WA from the Regional Skilled Migration Scheme to put “West Australian jobs first”.

While more workers are needed to build new homes, the Catch 22 is that the State lacks the homes to house these would-be workers.
The West on Friday revealed that Perth was experiencing its worst ever housing shortage, with properties for sale in Perth dropping by 24 per cent over the year.

DreamerG · August 2023

🙏🏼 hopefully ma revised and maconsider po since need ng manpower, though the reasons maybe of FG the backlog of visa approval last FY.

Ozdrims · August 2023

@DreamerG said:
🙏🏼 hopefully ma revised and maconsider po since need ng manpower, though the reasons maybe of FG the backlog of visa approval last FY.

Lets be hopeful there will be changes , with the backlogs - which i can say from last years quota - they have not invited people who will build their houses 😂 and infra depensa naman ni Premier Cook ,ka abang abang kung ano magiging final allocations.

Ozdrims · August 2023

WA deserves more of country’s skilled migrants: premier
Tom RabeWA political correspondent
Aug 22, 2023 – 6.37pm

Premier Roger Cook says Western Australia should get more skilled migrants under the federal system that allocates visas to the states, and warned Labor’s new housing plan could depend on importing a greater number of workers.
Mr Cook is lobbying Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to rethink a reduction in WA’s allocation of state-nominated visa applications, arguing his state deserves more workers given its booming economy.

Roger Cook (second from right) at last week’s National Cabinet meeting in Brisbane. Alex Ellinghausen
The premier on Tuesday said he was still waiting for a response from Mr Albanese after raising it at last week’s national cabinet meeting. Mr Cook warned the nation’s new home building boom relied on states receiving enough overseas workers.
“I put to the prime minister that if we are to meet our targets in relation to the national targets around home construction, we need the workers to do that construction,” Mr Cook said.
“That’s why the state-nominated migration program has to have a bigger quota for WA because we need those workers to make sure that we can supercharge our home construction industry.”

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the federal government inherited a system backlogged with applications last year, which had forced a “recalibration”.
“The government is engaging in a recalibration of our migration system through the migration review, and will continue to work with state and territory partners to ensure that we have all the policy settings right to ensure skills shortages across the country are addressed,” Mr Giles said in a statement.
“[The previous government] failed to plan for the borders reopening – even though it was clear that we would need skilled migrants when the borders reopened.”
The Albanese government last week offered the states and local councils $3.5 billion to fast-track the construction of 1.2 million new homes over the next five years.
WA Opposition Leader Shane Love on Tuesday said he had written to the prime minister requesting that the reduction in allocated visa applications for the state be reversed.
“It’s ludicrous that the federal government would use its administrative inability to process the visas as a reason for slashing the numbers available,” Mr Love said.

States receive a certain number of “nomination allocations” under specific visa schemes each year. However, the number of those nomination allocations do not directly reflect the number of visas that will be granted in these programs throughout the year.
In 2022-23, there were about 3100 state nominated visas and over 1100 Skilled Work Regional visas granted to migrants nominated by WA. The state has received a 2023-24 nomination allocation of 1500 for the skilled nomination visa, and 850 for the regional visa.
Former deputy secretary of the Immigration Department Abul Rizvi said the number of state nominated visas granted in 2022-23 would probably be close to the planning level for the following year.
“The allocation for state nominations in ’23-24, an interim stage before Home Affairs grants the visa, may have been reduced because Home Affairs has a large backlog of state nominations it has not yet processed to visa grant stage,” he said.
“Home Affairs could address the problem by shifting places from other visas such as skilled independents to state nominated visas.”

Source : https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/wa-deserves-more-of-country-s-skilled-migrants-premier-20230822-p5dylm#:~:text=Premier Roger Cook says Western,a greater number of workers.

Ozdrims · August 2023

💡From the commentary above - The reduced allocations could be because the huge backlogs that were not yet processed by the dept, luh at nag bigay pa ng alternative solution si Rizvi the former deputy sec of Immigration dept by shifting the places of other visas gaya ng 189 to accomodate the needed nomination allocations 😄🤞🏼

RheaMARN1171933 · August 2023

@Ozdrims said:
💡From the commentary above - The reduced allocations could be because the huge backlogs that were not yet processed by the dept, luh at nag bigay pa ng alternative solution si Rizvi the former deputy sec of Immigration dept by shifting the places of other visas gaya ng 189 to accomodate the needed nomination allocations 😄🤞🏼

I doubt this will happen. The problem with 189, migrants won’t even go to regional areas, they’ll end up in sydney or Melbourne, creating further problem since these cities are over saturated already. It’s a total mess!

Ozdrims · August 2023

State Nominations Started today ,good luck guys! From another group mostly were under building and construction and are onshore ,received pre invites lowest i saw is 75 including state nomination points

fmp_921 · August 2023

@Ozdrims said:
State Nominations Started today ,good luck guys! From another group mostly were under building and construction and are onshore ,received pre invites lowest i saw is 75 including state nomination points

Hopefully may offshore din.

Ozdrims · August 2023

Only a matter of time they will invite offshore people ,fighting! 😅

Ozdrims · September 2023

Hopefuls for WA invite ,lapit na ang end of the month 🙏 let’s keep our hopes high sana umabot na nang offshore this round or next round

enrico0919 · September 2023

For Western Australia, once ma nominate, meron ba silang hinihinge na condition or any settlement funds to present ?

enrico0919 · September 2023

For Western Australia, once ma nominate, meron ba silang hinihinge na condition or any settlement funds to present ?

Sharie · September 2023

@enrico0919 said:
For Western Australia, once ma nominate, meron ba silang hinihinge na condition or any settlement funds to present ?

Wlang settlement fee po. Pero may mga conditions cla na kelangan ka magstay sa state nila.

Ozdrims · September 2023

And they need you to relocate into WA 3months after your visa is granted ,confirm kaya na applicable itong condition na to for this current FY, considering may housing crisis doon?

fmp_921 · September 2023

@Ozdrims said:
And they need you to relocate into WA 3months after your visa is granted ,confirm kaya na applicable itong condition na to for this current FY, considering may housing crisis doon?

Hi. I emailed migration WA a few weeks ago about this. They said it is more of a recommended timeline, not a fixed one. So probably not a strict requirement.

Ozdrims · September 2023

State Skills reduced allocations

Article from WA media

Commonwealth cut skilled migrant visa numbers by 70 per ccent

WA Premier Roger Cook has pleaded with the Federal government to reverse its decision to trim the intake of overseas skills workers.
Premier Roger Cook said the Federal government's decision to reduce Western Australia's skilled migrant visa allocation was a failure.
"The fact that the Federal government would slash our numbers simply does not make sense," Mr Cook said.

"Previously we asked for 12,000 last year, we got 8000.
"We secured those workers inside the third quarter of the year.
"This year we asked for another 10,000 and we got an allocation of just over 2000 - that's not good enough.
Mr Cook recently wrote to the Commonwealth government, pleading for it to reconsider plans to drastically cut the intake of overseas skilled workers, that are required to feed WA's booming economy and keep powering the nation for the benefit of all Australians.

At a press conference in Albany on Friday, he said the reduction in skilled migrants would not just affect regional WA, suggesting "it will harm the whole of the State.
"We know that we are a State that is economically prosperous at the moment, our economy is growing faster than any other in the country.
"What we need today is workers, particularly housing workers to work in our construction industry, to work in our mining industry.

"We need to make sure that we can secure the labour that we need to continue to grow our economy and the Federal government needs to do its heavy lifting as well to make sure we can do that."
The Nationals WA leader Shane Love, who is also the opposition leader, also called on the Federal government to explain and reverse its reported decision to reduce WA's nominated skilled migrant intake by 70 per cent."
WA is reliant on a skilled migrant work force and any decision by the Federal Labor government to cut our State's intake is completely misguided and ignorant to the needs of WA," Mr Love said.
"WA is the economic powerhouse of the country and this decision by the Federal Labor government undermines the workforce of this State.

"Our State is gripped by critical worker shortages across a number of sectors, including health and housing, and now is not the time to decrease the number of skilled workers coming in."

The Nationals WA leader Shane Love, who is also the opposition leader, also called on the Federal government to explain and reverse its reported decision to reduce WA's nominated skilled migrant intake.
The Moore MLA said the decision was another sign that Labor does not understand the needs of WA and that a WA Labor Premier is unable to make any headway with his Federal colleagues in Canberra.
"WA doesn't need an embassy, we need the 14 Federal government members to prove they are up to the job our State elected them to do," he said.
"The Premier himself told Western Australians his Federal Labor colleagues weren't representing our interests in Canberra - this is proof.
"The Federal government needs to explain how they have come to this unexpected decision and the rationale behind compromising WA's future work force at such a critical time for our economy.

"A cynic would say the only possible reason for this decision is to set up a 'win' for the beleaguered Premier Cook when this irrational, and frankly bizarre, decision is surely overturned."
Mr Love will be writing to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, imploring him to re-examine the fundamentally flawed decision.

Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Brendan Giles said his government inherited a system with backlog after backlog, delays and waitlists and were working on reviewing the migration system.
"We haven't wasted a day in cleaning up the mess left by the Liberals over a decade of neglect, including the pile of one million visas sitting in the in-tray when we came to government," Mr Giles said.
"They failed to plan for the borders reopening - even though it was clear that we would need skilled migrants when the borders reopened."
He said they were getting the system moving again and reducing the waitlist.

"The backlog is nearly half and despite record demand, visas are being processed efficiently because of our $50 million investment in the system in the budget," Mr Giles said.
"The government is engaging in a recalibration of our migration system through the migration review, and will continue to work with State and territory partners to ensure that we have all the policy settings right to ensure skills shortages across the country are addressed."

(Source: Farm Weekly Media)

Ozdrims · September 2023

Of all the states that were given reduced allocations , WA has the strong stance to reverse the decision, wala sila acknowledgment in their website that they actually accepted the Federal gov’t notification, yun lang ang napansin ko, there might be a chance for this 😂 pag napagbigyan sila for sure other states will follow suit

Ozdrims · September 2023

Kailan kaya next round ni WA

DreamerG · September 2023

@Ozdrims said:
Of all the states that were given reduced allocations , WA has the strong stance to reverse the decision, wala sila acknowledgment in their website that they actually accepted the Federal gov’t notification, yun lang ang napansin ko, there might be a chance for this 😂 pag napagbigyan sila for sure other states will follow suit

They really need bad more allocations. They are more of developing state thats why they need more people sa infrastructures na din to accommodate incoming migrants now and in the future..