Skilled migrants already in Australia will be prioritised for permanent places as the government attempts to reduce the level of net overseas migration.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke quietly issued a ministerial direction last week that laid out the skilled visa processing priorities, with jobs in defence topping the industry preference list.
The May budget outlined that 70 per cent of the 185,000 permanent places would remain reserved for onshore applicants.
The focus will cosmetically reduce net overseas migration by prioritising temporary holders already counted in Australia's population for permanent status while slowing down new arrivals from overseas.
The Coalition and One Nation have maintained pressure on the government to reduce migration, with the latter rising in popularity by campaigning on significant cuts.
ANU Migration Hub director Alan Gamlen said the conversion of visas to permanent status was one of the biggest levers the government could use to reduce the backlog of temporary visas.
"It allows them to prioritise applications from people who are already here and contributing and working, rather than sort of adding to this potential queue or backlog of people who're coming into the country afresh on new visas," he told ABC.
Dr Gamlen said those processing bottlenecks remained, with a record 432,300 people alone on bridging visas.
"This directive allows the government to address some of the problems with the oversized temporary migrant population that has arisen over time and particularly in the wake of the pandemic," he said.
Net overseas migration (NOM), the calculation of annual population growth by tracking arrivals and departures, ballooned when international borders reopened after COVID-19.
NOM was 301,000 last year, the lowest level since its peak of 556,000 in September 2022.
Abul Rizvi does not believe the changes will have a significant effect on NOM. (ABC News: Krishani Dhanji)
Abul Rizvi, a Department of Immigration deputy secretary from the early 1990s to 2007, said the government still had "some way to go" to reach its 225,000 NOM target.
"This will make a small effort in that regard," he said.
"The government wants to reduce the number of people in Australia long-term on temporary entry visas. At the moment, we have around 3 million people in Australia on temporary visas."
Dr Rizvi said some individuals arrived on permanent visas, but the government was trying to better manage the pathway for those who arrived on a student or skilled visa and then went on to become a permanent resident.
Who will be prioritised?
The government is prioritising defence and law enforcement related workers, singling out applicants that can help advance its interest in relation to AUKUS.
"The number of visas to Defence and AUKUS people in the short term will be quite small, so I don't think that'll make much of a difference," Dr Rizvi said.
Those working in construction, health and aged care will also be processed more quickly.
A Home Affairs spokesperson said the program aimed to support "key industries and strategically important occupations that are in the national interest".
"An onshore-focused program will support timely transitions to permanent residency for migrants already living and working in, and contributing to, Australia," the spokesperson said.
The priorities replace the previous direction, which had employer-sponsored visas for designated regional areas carrying top weight.
Health care and teaching occupations followed closely in priority.
'Migration by stealth'
Shadow Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Jonno Duniam criticised the government's lack of transparency when making the changes and accused it of managing "migration by stealth".
"The Government has made a significant change here without proper announcement or consultation, and not openly and transparently choosing the migrants who best meet the nation's needs," Senator Duniam said in a statement to the ABC.
"Simply rearranging the processing queue may cosmetically reduce net migration, but it will do nothing meaningful to fix the backlogs, visa hopping and poor administration that created this enormous onshore temporary population."
Jonno Duniam has criticised what he says is a lack of transparency from the government. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Both experts agreed that the government needed to inform the public about what it was trying to achieve.
Dr Gamlen said the government needed to take a more "proactive" role in explaining the changes or risk further misinformation about migration.
"It leaves a kind of fact void around migration issues, and that fact void can just be filled with misinformation or myths or misunderstandings," he said.
"That can sort of grow and fester into a not very reasonable sense that migration isn't being controlled, even though it is. So I think it's quite important that the government makes the case for the policies and changes that it's making, including this one."
