Post Implementation Review – Department of Immigration and Border Protection
In 2013, the Australian Government implemented several changes to the Temporary Work (Skilled) Migration (Subclass 457) Programme. In July 2013 the Government introduced measures to tighten foreign temporary skilled work visa obligations through changes to the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Act 2013. The changes included:
- an obligation for sponsors to keep records of training and to honour their commitment to contribute towards training Australians;
- a genuineness test to assess the position’s validity to the nominated occupation; and
- changes to the occupation based exemptions to the English language provisions.
Further changes were implemented in November 2013 to introduce Labour Market Testing (LMT) to better ensure due consideration was given to the Australian labour market. Regulation Impact Statements (RISs) were required for the above decisions in accordance with the Government’s regulation requirements at that time. However, the RISs were not prepared, triggering the requirement to undertake post-implementation reviews (PIRs). A PIR which incorporated an assessment of all the above measures prepared by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was assessed as compliant by the Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR). The PIR assessed the measures imposed regulatory costs of $10.42 million per annum. The OBPR agreed to the estimate.
