The Labor government has announced their long-awaited reforms to migration, aiming to bring Net Overseas Migration forecasts down from 292,100 in the year to March 2026 to 245,000 in this financial year and 225,000 by 2027-28.
For an industry that leans heavily on visa-dependent labour, several of these changes are worth watching closely. These include:
• Tighter enforcement to ensure people without valid visas leave the country.
• Improving the integrity of student visas, including restrictions on family members accompanying students (with exemptions).
• Introducing a No Further Stay condition to all visitor visas to ensure they are only used by genuine visitors and not as a pathway to extending a stay in Australia.
• Changing the Working Holiday Maker Program to introduce a ballot system for second- and third-year visas – 45,000 places for year two, 5,000 for year three – with the existing regional work requirement retained. Processing times will be stabilised to three months for all WHM applicants except those from the UK.
• Ministerial Direction 119 will be updated to fast-track priority sectors, including healthcare, construction, education, law enforcement, defence, resources, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing.
The Department of Home Affairs is yet to release comprehensive details of the cuts to the specific Working Holiday and Work and Holiday visas, nor has it released specific numbers for international students. Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke has maintained that immigration is fundamentally a strength to Australia, and that the reforms are about ensuring the system is better targeted to the country’s current needs rather than shutting the door on the people who help keep it running.
It’s a poor outcome for our sector but the Government has continually signalled that migration cuts have been coming, in a bid to try to appease the political pressure the government is under on immigration. Cuts to migration will make an already tight labour-market even tighter, forcing industries to compete for a smaller pool of workers.
In addition, our sector will not be considered a priority sector for skilled visa processing and there were no announcements about how the workforce shortages will be addressed through training more locals for the skills we need.
We have raised these concerns directly with Home Affairs, Austrade, and the Skills Minister Andrew Giles and Tourism Minister Don Farrell in Canberra over the past week. We will continue to work through the details in coming days.
Read the Australian Hotels Association media statement here.
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