Skilled Worker Visa Regulations To Be Relaxed In Queensland

22 Sep 2012

The increasing skill shortages have forced Queensland to mull over the relaxation of visa guidelines for overseas skilled workers.

Queensland has sponsored 212 visas and 22,247 state sponsored places in 2011. Queensland has fallen behind when the requirement is very high, and there are plenty of jobs for skilled professionals.

Treasurer Tim Nicholls said “Queensland has fallen behind other Australian states, and today has some of the most onerous criteria for state sponsored visas. We will also engage with the Commonwealth Government to increase our business visa allocation places.”

Queensland has very stricter visa rules when compared to other neighboring states. For e.g.: An engineer who intends to stay and work in Queensland needs to have 7 years of work experience where as in Western Australia the same engineer would require only 12 months of experience.

The state would work along with the national government to make visa rules simpler and offer more skilled worker visas to workers from overseas. This is the only way to combat the skill shortage the State is witnessing at the moment.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Queensland, Jeff Seeney said: “It is vital that Queensland took advantage of the economic opportunity the mining industry presented. The revenue opportunities for a state like ours are very limited. But one of the main revenue opportunities for this state is the mining industry, principally the coal industry which is the biggest part.”

Jeff Seeney also told “This government is aggressively tackling overregulation and clearing project approval backlogs.”

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