Reforms in Australian visas postponed until Federal elections

Australia, 26th July: Due to upcoming Federal elections in Australia, certain important changes in Australia immigration are likely to be delayed.

This was announced by Bob Correll, DIAC’s (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) chief information officer at a CIO Summit 2010 last week. The DIAC has planned to introduce a few key changes in Australia immigration rules under the Systems for People program.

The general elections in Australia are due on 21st August 2010 following which the second drop of amendments in Australian visa rules could not be done.

The amendments to be made in Australian immigration rules will include introduction of a generic visa portal allowing simpler, easier and faster processing of Australian visas of 140 categories. Meanwhile, a new date for the transformational changes is yet to be announced.

Australia’s generic visa portal is part of 12 portals by Australia’s immigration department for Systems for People programme, a A$500 million four-year transformational change programme formed in 2006 following Palmer Report in 2005 on immigration system of Australia.

Correll said the year 2005 was a really bad year for Australian immigration department which focused on improving problems lying in IT and business process within the department.

On 30th June 2010, one portal was implemented by Australia quite successfully.

The delay in the implementation of changes in Australia immigration rules will affect the upcoming initiatives. Moreover, it will also affect the second round of transformational changes in Australian visa rules to be announced for the coming five years period.

It may be noted that second round of transformational changes in Australian immigration rules will reduce the number of Australian visas to 70 from the current 140 while making online application and processing of 95 percent of such visas. Presently, 25 percent of such visas are processed online.

Moreover, Australian immigration department will ensure to have improved risk management while increasing strength to the overseas presence of DIAC to arrange direct contact between high-risk clients and the DIAC.

Each year, applications of around 25 million inbound travelers and migrants are processed by Australian immigration department. In the year 2009, Australian immigration department issued Australian temporary visas to 4.6 million immigrants, Correll revealed.