by Jessica Washington
SYDNEY, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government announced sweeping changes to the occupations list for temporary and permanent skilled visas on Friday, with foreign workers in the engineering and scientific community set to benefit from the update.
The revised skilled visa list released by Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton, saw a number of occupations move back onto the list after being removed in April, when the federal government announced its major upheaval of the 457 visa system.
Tony Melville from the Australian Industry Group said the new changes are "broadly positive," particularly for those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) roles, and he is satisfied by the government's decision to rectify some of their prior decisions.
"STEM skills are in big demand, and we don't have enough people trained in Australia. Seeing a number of skills returned to the list is very positive," Melville told Xinhua on Friday.
"The government has to be conscious that some companies need those high level skills, and it's that high level that is needed to train a new crop of experts. There had been quite a few skills that had been quite innocently taken off the list, and it hadn't been realized that companies really need these skills."
A variety of STEM occupations, such as microbiologist, and biochemist are back on the list, largely due to outcry from the university and research sector, which welcomed the announcement despite university tutor not being reinstated to the list.
"We commend the ministers, their dedicated staff and departmental officials, who listened carefully and worked with us to achieve an outcome that is genuinely in Australia's best interests by being able to continue to attract the world's best and brightest researchers," Universities Australia Chief Executive Belinda Robinson said.
"The global community of university lecturers and researchers is a highly mobile one. Australia needs policy settings that allow us to remain competitive, and ensure we are able to snap up the best global talent to work alongside our brilliant home-ground researchers."
Some of the changes in the university sector include the restoration of university lecturer to the medium and long-term strategic skills list, as well as confirmation from the government that the time a student spends on their PhD will count as work experience when they need to apply for another skilled visa.
The revised 457 visa occupations list has also seen the reinstatement of CEO, which Melville said can be interpreted as a sign of change "at the highest level" with the government's implementation of a minimum salary of 180,000 Australian dollars (138,000 U.S. dollars) being a good way of combating visa scammers.
"We had seen some international students coming here, getting a business degree and then calling themselves a CEO. So there were many people giving themselves that title and it simply was not genuine," Melville said.
"There were some companies from around the region that have Australian based subsidiaries, so it's a relief for them to be back on the list under these new changes."
While some may be feeling relieved in light of the announcement, a number of jobs were removed from the list, including real estate agent, and property manager.
The government announced it will review the list every six months, which Melville said should bring positive outcomes for the industries that were most impacted by the visa crackdown.
"It was only first announced eight weeks ago, and they've already made changes. So, in a policy sense, if you put out a small list, it won't have much impact. They've opted to go for a much larger list, and then react very quickly by returning skills that they may have mistakenly taken off," he said.
"We can say that it is settled, at least, for the next six months."
