Authorities in Australia have unfolded plans to issue more parent as well as skilled visas by increasing budgets.
According to a report by Yaxis, the Australian government has invested about $36.1 million to increase the staff so the processing time of visas can be reduced, VisaGuide.World reports.
The same reports that the number of skills, as well as family visas, marked a notable increase from a total of 160,000 to 195,000. More specifically, out of the total, skilled visas rose from 79,000 to a total of 142,000, while parent visas rose from 4,500 to 8,500.
Regarding the issue, the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, stressed that there is an additional budget that will serve to increase allocations of skilled as well as parent visas.
“This is a substantial improvement in funding for Home Affairs; we are getting the processing of visas going again,” Albanese said.
As of $576 million, it has been allocated to the immigration department for visa processing as well as processing centers that are offshore in order to support refugees.
The Prime Minister of Australia told SBS News that there were nearly a million people in the queue for visas during the time Labor took office and had exacerbated skill shortages in this country.
“It’s also having an impact on families for a family reunion; it’s having an impact on people who want to visit Australia and on our economy. It’s a substantial increase in investment that we’re doing, consistent with what we said before the election,” he pointed out in this regard.
During the Jobs and Skills Summit held last month, the Australian government vowed to accelerate visa processing times, announcing an extra $36.1 million to hire over 500 people for a period of nine months to help address wait times.
Regarding the issue, the Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, told the summit that almost one million visas are waiting to be processed by the Labor von government in May. It has been reported that the median processing time for a temporary protection visa has since come down from 53 days in May to 42 days in July.
“Australia is … experiencing a rapid rebound in visa applications. We have received nearly 2.22 million new applications since 1 June 2022, compared with nearly 495,000 for the same period in 2021,” Giles pointed out.
Giles stressed that the Department of Home Affairs had already added 260 more staff in order to support visa processing, and more were being recruited as well as trained in the coming weeks and months.
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