Immigration update on Sponsored Temporary Migrants – the Consolidated Skills Occupation List has been released
Just an update for all members on the payoff for some extremely good advocacy work from the AHA, QHA and Accommodation Australia.
Last week the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Training & Skills released the Consolidated Skills occupation List (CSOL) that will drive all core skills employer sponsored temporary migrants between the TSMIT (minimum salary) and $135,000 salary pa. The Ministers’ media release is attached. Link to CSOL doc attached.
It is mostly good news, but with a couple of misses. On the plus side, many of the occupations that we were very keen to keep have remained on the list and are able to be sponsored. These include:
- Hotel Service Managers (Exec Housekeepers),
- Cooks,
- Chefs,
- Pastrycooks and
- Finance Managers.
Of the occupations we advocated for, the two that are missing are restaurant managers and security managers. Restaurant managers were always at risk for not being on the list as it is one that has been regularly abused. Security managers were also challenging, as their occupation falls within a code that is a catch-all of specialist managers not elsewhere classified.
A key thing to remember about the current system is that all temporary skilled occupations have a pathway to permanency now, so it is significant improvement on the old split system of short term ( which under the Coalition had no pathway to permanency) and medium-term lists.
The AHA / AA have further meetings scheduled with Minister Burke. We hope that this list will also inform the permanent skilled sponsorship – it is logical that it should as it would be good if we had access to all skilled occupations. We also need to find out if there will be any transitional arrangements. It will be very challenging if access to occupations such as restaurant manager are just switched off.
Nonetheless, this is a terrific outcome as we were in the situation that none of our occupations were on the skills list when the consultation began. Efforts to contact Federal politicians in Queensland electorates about this issue, enlisting support from the Queensland Government and assisting us in walking the halls in Canberra have paid off – so thanks to all involved. We acknowledge the great work by Dave Canny (National President and AHA Vic President), Stephen Ferguson in AHA National Office and particularly Jenny Lambert the Accommodation Australia Policy Manager who has been instrumental.
We have more to achieve in immigration, but we should be pleased to have got this through with a Government that does not always understand the impacts these decisions have right across Queensland.
