Published on the 14/11/2019 | Written by Jonathan Cotton
Australia puts visa bait out for tech gurus, but will they bite?…
Calling all overseas senior techies: Australia is hiring. The federal Government has launched a new ‘fast track’ Visa programme to encourage tech migrants to Australia – and hopefully bolster the country’s tech competitiveness.
Quietly launched in June but announced earlier this month, the Global Talent Independent program offers a ‘streamlined, priority visa pathway for highly skilled and talented individuals to work and live permanently in Australia’.
Not to be confused with the similar-sounding Global Talent Employer Sponsored scheme (which lets employers sponsor overseas workers for niche positions that can’t be filled by Australian workers), the GTI offers fast-tracked, personalised immigration process for highly-skilled migrants.
And the government’s not waiting for applicants to apply. Rather, the new scheme will be based entirely on a referral system: Applicants must be referred from ‘an organisation or an individual with a national reputation in the same field as the candidate’, or one of the programme’s global talent officers.
“These high-growth sectors exist in truly global markets.”
To that end outreach programmes have been set up in Berlin, Dubai, New Delhi, Santiago, Shanghai, Singapore and Washington DC to attract the best talent in the world to work in Australia’s ‘top future-focused fields’.
And what might they be? According to government consultations with industry and academia, agritech, space and advanced manufacturing, fintech, energy and mining, medtech, security and ‘Quantum Information, Advanced Digital, Data Science and ICT’.
Those are the industries that will drive growth in Australian tech and create local jobs, enthuses Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews.
“These high-growth sectors exist in truly global markets,” says Andrews.
“For our domestic tech industry to grow, businesses need to be able to hire skilled Australian workers as well as access the capabilities of specialists from across the world”.
“We can create high-paying local jobs by making Australia a global technology hub and the Global Talent program is a signal to tech companies that we’re open for business.”
The creation of the scheme follows the scrapping of the contentious 457 scheme in 2017, which many saw prioritising low-cost forgein workers over local professionals.
Could this programme be abused by employers looking to import cheap labour from elsewhere? Probably not, at least in the same way: Applicants for the GTI scheme must provide evidence of an expected first year income of over the $AU148,700 threshold.
Up to 5000 visas will be made available over 2019/20. They are not additions to Australia current migrant allotment, rather, that 5000 will come from Australia’s permanent migration program.
While the move may be still disheartening for Australian’s hoping to compete for those six figure salaries, the government is urging big picture thinking, saying that the new scheme will open opportunities for Australians by “transferring skills, promoting innovation and creating job opportunities”.
“With this program, we are targeting the world’s most highly skilled migrants”, Minister for Immigration David Coleman says.
“We want to position Australia at the forefront of major growth trends in the world economy. By enabling local businesses to access the world’s best talent, we will help to grow high growth industries in Australia.”
“Over time, the Global Talent program has the potential to have a transformative impact on the Australian economy.”
Whether that’s indeed the case remains to seen. As does the question of whether a streamlined immigration process – and Australia’s tech industry – is enough to convince those invited to come.
