Tony Burke’s migration reforms, answered: what changes for students, partners, tradespeople and overstayers

The short answer

The Minister described the whole package as three plain rules: apply for a temporary visa if you want to come temporarily, apply for a permanent visa if you want to stay, and leave when your visa ends.

• Skilled applicants in the housing trades will receive the same points as a university qualification under a reformed points test.
• New international students and graduate visa holders will not be able to attach family members, with exceptions for the Pacific, ASEAN nations and certain courses such as PhDs. Families already onshore are unaffected.
• Visitor visas will carry a No Further Stay condition, so they can no longer be converted onshore, but genuine family visits should become easier to approve.
• Students may only progress up the qualification scale, not sideways or down to cheaper providers.
• Second and third year working holiday visas move to capped ballots of 45,000 and 5,000 places. The regional work requirements are unchanged.
• Overstayer compliance returns to the pre-2015 approach, with 100 extra compliance officers and 250 extra detention beds.
• Changes to the protection system and an expression of interest model require legislation and were not announced as settled.

What does the Minister mean by “visa hopping”?

Not every move from one visa to another. The Minister was careful to separate two things, and the distinction matters if you are part way through a pathway.

A student who studies in an area of skill shortage, moves onto a graduate visa, finds work in that shortage area, is sponsored by their employer on a temporary work visa, applies to the permanent program and eventually becomes a citizen is not visa hopping. He called that the system working at its absolute best.

“There is a problem with visa hopping where there are individuals who would never in fact meet the qualifications to be able to become a permanent resident and effectively jump from visa to visa, use the appeals process to be able to stay here as long as possible.”

If your visas have moved you toward a qualification, a skilled occupation and a permanent application, you are on the pathway the reforms are designed to protect. Most of the tightening below targets the second pattern, not the first.

Is the government moving away from a demand-driven migration system?

That is the direction, though the main tool for it is not yet available. The old assumption, as the Minister described it, was that if employers could get the workers they needed and institutions could get the students willing to pay, then infrastructure and housing would take care of themselves.

He said that is no longer the experience of Australians, and that there is now an expectation that government takes a higher level of control over parts of the system. The measure that would deliver that most directly is an expression of interest model, which requires legislation and was not announced as in place.

Will a trade qualification now count for more in the points test?

Yes, if the trade is in the housing sector. The points test is being reformed so that particular skills can be given an uplift and treated as though they sat at a higher level of qualification. Until now a university course attracted more points than a TAFE or trade qualification.

“It will be the case under the new points test that we will, on implementation, be making sure that anyone who is skilled in the housing trades will get the same number of points as though it were a university qualification, to make sure that we are getting the construction trades that we desperately need.”

Construction, agriculture, fisheries, resources and teaching are also being added to the processing priority list under Ministerial Direction 119, so applications in those sectors should move faster.

Can international students still bring their partner or family to Australia?

Not for new student or graduate visa applications. The Minister confirmed that family members will no longer be able to be attached to international student visas or graduate visas. The stated reason is the gap between that arrangement and the years an Australian citizen waits for a partner visa.

Three points matter for people already in Australia and for those planning ahead:

• If your family is already attached to your visa and already here, that stays as is until you leave Australia, unless you become entitled to a permanent visa. The Minister was explicit that families onshore will not be broken up.
• Special visa conditions will still allow family attachment for the Pacific and ASEAN nations.
• Certain courses are excepted, including PhD study, on the basis that those students are usually at a different stage of life than undergraduates.

If you are weighing up an application with a partner or children, the timing of lodgement is now the decision that matters most. Talk to us before you lodge.

What is the No Further Stay condition on visitor visas, and who does it affect?

A No Further Stay condition means the holder cannot apply for most further visas while they are in Australia. It will be attached to visitor visas issued in future. It cannot apply to a protection application.

This closes a route that had been widely used: a partner arriving on a visitor visa, applying onshore, and remaining on a bridging visa while the application was decided. The Minister called it a double standard with no logic attached to it.

The change is designed to cut both ways. Because caseworkers must test whether a visit is for a genuine temporary purpose, the onshore conversion practice had been causing legitimate visitor applications to be refused. Removing it is intended to make those visas easier to grant.

“It also means while someone is waiting for a spouse visa to come through, their partner will be able to visit Australia on a regular basis.”

Nobody already in Australia is affected. The Minister confirmed the change applies to the issuing of future visas and the rules for future visas only.

Can I still change courses on a student visa?

Yes, within limits. The announcement separates three things students do after arrival, and only the third is changing:

• Extension. Unchanged. A 12-month extension remains available where you cannot finish your course in time, for example through serious illness or your institution closing.
• Transfer. Still possible. Moving to a different course at the same institution or the same level, using your existing credits, will require a new visa application so the department can test that the change is legitimate.
• Progression. This is where the rule tightens. You may move up the qualification scale only.

In practice, finishing a bachelor degree and starting a master’s is fine. Moving sideways or down to a cheaper, less demanding provider in order to keep working in Australia is the pattern being ended. The Minister described providers telling students that attendance would not be enforced.

Can I still get a second or third year working holiday visa?

Only if you are selected in a ballot. The work requirements themselves do not change: 88 days of regional work for a second year, six months for a third year. What changes is that meeting the criteria no longer guarantees a visa, because the number of places is capped.

• Second year: a ballot limited to 45,000 places. Last year 57,000 people qualified.
• Third year: a ballot limited to 5,000 places. Last year this group numbered 31,000.

The third year is the sharper cut. The Minister noted it was introduced relatively recently and, outside the United Kingdom arrangement, is not part of any free trade agreement. If a second or third year matters to your plans, do not treat it as a given, and complete your regional work early rather than late.

One benefit comes with the caps. Because the numbers are being controlled, normal processing speed is being restored for first-time working holiday maker applications in the streams that carry the regional requirement.

Are UK working holiday applications affected differently?

Yes. There is no regional work requirement for United Kingdom applicants, and the restored processing speed does not extend to that stream. UK applications will continue to be processed at the slower pace of recent months.

The reason given was growth. When the free trade agreement was signed there were around 17,000 UK backpackers in Australia, a figure the Minister acknowledged was low because it sat at the end of the pandemic. The previous peak was around 35,000. The number is now just short of 80,000.

Because the arrangement sits inside a free trade agreement, any change is a diplomatic conversation rather than a unilateral one. The Minister said he and colleagues including Penny Wong, Don Farrell and Julie Collins would continue those discussions with UK counterparts.

Does this change anything for genuine asylum seekers?

No changes to the protection system were announced as settled. The Minister said the issue can only be dealt with through legislation, and that part of the story could not be completed on the day.

The concern he set out is narrow: people at the end of a run of visas lodging protection claims they know will fail, in order to remain in Australia through the appeals and court process, potentially for up to nine years. He put the scale of it plainly: applicants from countries where more than 85% of applications fail make up 80% of the caseload, which slows the processing of legitimate claims.

“I want to deal with it in a way that does not in any way create problems for the genuine asylum seekers who are there, who a decent nation needs to have a decent system for.”

One related change does not need legislation. The Code for migration agents will be amended so that agents who encourage non-meritorious claims can be sanctioned and deregistered.

What happens if I have overstayed my visa?

Compliance returns to the process Australia used before 2015. Under that approach an overstayer was given a bridging visa and asked to leave; if they did not, they were brought into a detention centre and typically arranged their own flight within a few weeks. In 2015 Australia moved to mandatory visa cancellation, which changed how the detention network is used.

Resourcing announced: 100 additional compliance officers and 250 additional detention beds. Alternative places of detention near airports are already available, and the former quarantine facility in Melbourne is being examined for possible repurposing.

“This is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries… We need, with the integrity of the program, to make sure that we can go back simply to what we did before 2015. No more and no less.”

If you are unlawful or close to it, this is the point to get advice rather than wait. Options narrow once a visa has expired, and doing nothing is now more likely to have consequences.

What is changing for migration agents?

The Code of Conduct for registered migration agents is being amended so that agents who encourage non-meritorious claims can be sanctioned and deregistered. The Minister said it was something that should have happened some time ago.

For you as a client, this is worth understanding as a warning sign. If anyone has advised you to lodge a claim you both know will fail in order to buy time in Australia, that advice is now a registration risk for them and a dead end for you.

We are MARA registered and our advice is the pathway that actually exists for you, including when the answer is that there is not one yet.

Is immigration being blamed for the housing shortage?

The Minister pushed back on that directly. He pointed to household size as the driver, noting that after living closely together through COVID, many people decided they wanted fewer people in the home than before, and that the trend may continue. Australians have every right to decide how many people they want per household.

On the current numbers he was specific: immigration is not putting further pressure on housing at present. The policy aim is different, that migration softens enough to give housing supply a chance to catch up.

Should I lodge my application now or wait?

It depends which measure touches you, and the answer is genuinely different case to case. Broadly:

• Students planning to bring a partner or children. The family attachment change applies to future applications. Lodgement timing is the whole decision here. Get advice before you file.
• Partners planning to travel on a visitor visa and apply onshore. That route closes for visas issued in future. Plan an offshore partner application instead, with visits alongside it.
• Skilled applicants in the housing trades. Waiting may work in your favour once the new points test commences, because your qualification may be scored higher.
• Anyone unlawful or near the end of a visa. Do not wait. Compliance is being resourced up.

Nothing here is a reason to panic, and nothing here is a reason to guess. The measures commence at different times and several are not law yet.

Does any of this change permanent residency or citizenship?

No change to the permanent residency criteria or to citizenship requirements was announced. The points test reform changes how skilled applicants are scored, not what permanent residency is or how long citizenship takes.

The stated purpose of the whole package was the opposite of restricting it. The Minister framed integrity in the temporary system as what gives meaning to the citizenship ceremonies happening around the country.

“If you want to come on a temporary basis to Australia, apply for a temporary visa. If you want to come to Australia permanently, apply for a permanent visa. And if you no longer have a valid visa, you should leave Australia. That’s all it is.”

When do these changes take effect?

No single start date was given. The Minister said the reforms were worked up through last year and largely formalised by February, and that they are not as comprehensive as he would like, because the larger measures cannot be delivered without legislation. The expression of interest system for managing demand, and the protection system changes, both sit in that category.

Until instruments and regulations are published, treat the detail as announced policy rather than current law. We will update this page as each measure is implemented.