Funding for Home Affairs’ migration function is set to be slashed by one-third over the next two years, despite existing delays in visa processing.
is set to further blow out already stretched visa waiting times and heap more pressure on businesses waiting on the arrival of workers and tourists.
One-quarter of applications are taking at least one year to process, while the slowest 10 per cent of temporary skilled visas are taking 15 months to process, according to data from Home Affairs.One-quarter of tourist applications are taking almost one month to finalise, though the median visitor visa is being processed in six days., said recruitment was being hampered by visa processing times of 15 months and more.
Former Department of Immigration senior official Abul Rizvi said the looming budget cut was occupying resources at Home Affairs.. “Their focus is on how the hell do we manage such a huge budget gap?”He said it appeared Home Affairs had brought funding forward to address current resourcing issues, but the agency was set to pay the price over the next couple of years.
New Zealand is among countries speeding up visa processing for skilled workers in priority professions, adding to the pressure on Australia. “A lot of unhappy people with big backlogs and budget cuts just makes for more unhappy people,” Mr Rizvi said.
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