Change in Australian immigration policy irks applicants

Visa applicants to Australia were recently surprised and annoyed when the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship declared previously unheard of priority policies, which will now be considered for the General Skilled Migration programme.

This has prompted many of the applicants to delicately protest against the Australian government by launching an online petition. With the declared changes termed by the protesters as sudden and unexpected, the online petition is seen as a means to register their protests. The applicants are encouraged to speak out in this petition against what had been termed by the protesters as extremely unfair practices in the processing of visas.

The changes in the General Skilled Migration programme are said to hamper visa allocations to applicants already in the final stages of visa processing, even those who have already been allocated case workers. Also affected in this are immigrants having visa applications that are yet to be processed.
These changes were apparently brought out without any previous notification to the applicants. Also, enforcement of these rules was prompt and they were executed without any delays. Most applicants were extremely uneasy at the sudden change in rules, mostly those that were farther along in the process. The group has reportedly announced that it considered the new rules as extremely unfair and has asked the Australian department to make sure that no other penalties were introduced to applicants whose cases were already under consideration.

It is expected that immigration laws will be changed to follow the soon-to-be-released Migration Occupation in Demands Lists(MODL) which will be very close to Britain’s similar policy on occupation shortlist.