Australian population

2017 data may be a bit old BUT at least it gives us some idea of how the Australian population spread out. Big cities like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne & Perth are quite populated. Hence, there is no surprise that the current government try to push the population growth to the regional area.

Think of migrating, think regional.

Most of the regional areas aren't that bad. They are livable, nice and quiet areas like Adelaide, Canberra, Cairns....and... many more. Good environment to bring up a family.

International Education

International Education is such a big industry for Australia. It's here to stay but I just hope that those private colleges provide a good education quality. Not just here to make money and take advantage of some international students.

There are too many low quality or no quality at all colleges around. They need to be gone.

New Regional Visas; 16 Nov 2019

New skilled regional provisional visas - commencing from 16 November 2019.

Definition of Regional Australia: Anywhere, except Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Perth.

A big bonus for Wollongong and Newcastle NSW.

There will be two new skilled regional provisional visas introduced in November 2019:

1. Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa, subclass 494. This will replace subclass 187. It is for people sponsored by an employer in regional Australia and

2. Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa, subclass 491. This will replace subclass 489. It is for people who are nominated by a State or Territory government or sponsored by an eligible family member to live and work in regional Australia.

Under these new visas, migrants will be required to live and work in a regional area of Australia for at least three years before they are eligible to apply for permanent residence.

These new regional visas will provide greater incentives for regional employers to nominate skilled workers, including priority processing of applications and access to additional skilled occupations.

Based on current eligible skilled occupation lists:

• the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa will have almost 700 eligible occupations; and

• the Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa will have over 500 eligible occupations.

These new visas will granted with a validity of up to a period of 5 years.

Independent Skilled Migrant, visa subclass 189; May 2019 invitation round

May 2019 invitation round.
The number of invitations for subclass 189:

80 points: 36
85 points: 37
90 or higher: less than 27

The minimum points for some of the occupations:

Accountants: 90
Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers: 85
Electronics Engineer: 80
Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers: 80
Other Engineering Professionals: 80
ICT Business and System Analyst: 85
Software and Applications Programmers: 80
Computer Network Professionals: 80