On 6 Oct, the Department of Home Affairs Skillselect team issued a second round of 189 invitations for the financial year 2022-23. It's welcome news for all those waiting in the queue to be invited. However, we observe clear preference was given to offshore applicants over onshore ones, which clearly contracted the Department's long-term operation of 189 invitation and was also unfair to those onshore applicants. 

In these two invitation rounds, there are many occupations with the same ANZCO, overseas applicants received invitations for as low as 65 points, and onshore applicants with much higher points (normally equivalent to better language skills, employment experience, etc) were not invited at all. Such as the first round 65 points invitations were issued for the overseas chef but no invitation was issued for any onshore chef according to the department's official report. In the second invitation, the same invitation scenario happened to almost all engineering-related occupations, with many offshore applicants receiving invitations on 65 points and no invitations issued to onshore applicants for the same occupations with higher points, such 85/90 points were not invited. 

This operation is in clear contradiction to the department's own policy published in its website:

The highest-ranked individuals by points score are invited to apply for the relevant visa. For those who have equal points scores, the time at which they reached their points score for that subclass (referred to as the date of effect) determines their order of invitation. Expressions of Interest with earlier dates of effect are invited before later dates.

Such practice is also clearly very unfair to all the onshore applicants as well. We understand that Australia is in a serious skill shortage. The Government may want to prioritize skilled workers from overseas now. But this dost does not mean that onshore applicants should be sacrificed. During the pandemic time, they stayed in this country and made contributions to this society as all Australians. They try their best to meet all requirements set by the state or federal government and reach as highest points as they can. Compared to offshore applicants, many of them already have relevant jobs and work experience. Besides, they have higher English levels and stronger connections with Australia. Therefore, it is unfair to put offshore applicants ahead of onshore applicants who have higher points.

Our Appeal

We demand that the Department of Home Affairs should give a fair go for onshore applicants for the future 189 invitation rounds, that means the invitation of the 189 visa application should be solely based on the point ranking for the same occupation.