Important upcoming changes
The Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Bourke, delivered a speech at the National Press Club of Australia on 17th September 2026, outlining significant reforms to Australia’s migration program. Consistent with the measures announced in the May 2026 Federal Budget, these changes are designed to reduce Australia’s Net Overseas Migration to 245,000 in the current financial year and 225,000 by 2027-28, while continuing to prioritise workers in key sectors.
Changes to Points Test System and Ministerial Direction 119
As previously announced in May 2026, the points test system, a cornerstone for the subclass 189, 190 and 491 visa programs, will be redesigned. Under the reform, certain skilled workers, such as construction tradespersons, will get the same number of points as applicants holding a university qualification.
Similarly, the Ministerial Direction 119 – mentioned in our previous blogpost here: https://www.evolvelawyers.com.au/news/84po4wsx60ok5n0jyafzqcd3xucgvo), is now in force. The Direction prioritises the processing of visa applications in a range of key sectors, including healthcare, construction, education, law enforcement, defence, resources, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing, helping to address ongoing workforce shortages in areas of national importance.
Working holiday (WH) visa
A ballot system will be introduced for the second and third year WH visa applications, with ongoing regional work requirements designed to support regional Australia. An exception continues to apply to UK passport holders under the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement. The government will cap second-year working holiday visas at 45,000 annually and the third-year places will be capped at just 5,000. The processing time will return back to normal speed with the government intending to stabilise processing times for WH maker applications to 3 months.
Student (Subclass 500) and Graduate Visas (Subclass 485)
Student and graduate visa applicants won’t be allowed to bring their dependents, unless they are from an ASEAN or Pacific nations, or enrolled in PhD courses in Australia.
An additional change will make it impossible for students to ‘transfer down’: it won’t be possible to study a master for then enrolling into a TAFE course. This denotes that progression is key for a successful visa application.
Visitor Visas and ‘No Further Stay Requirement’
In order to create greater consistency to the family migration programs, the Visitor Visas will shortly come with Condition ‘8503’, also known as the ‘No Further Stay’ condition. This condition will significantly restrict the ability of Visitor Visa holders to lodge further substantive visa applications while in Australia and access the associated bridging visa arrangements. By doing this, the Minister intends to push as many visa applicants as possible to apply offshore and wait for their Australian visas offshore.
Overstayers
The Minister intends to introduce tougher compliance measures to deal with people overstaying their visa by returning to the 2015 practice. Under these measures, overstayers would be brought into detention centres while making arrangements to resolve their immigration status. To support the implementation of these measures, the Government has announced additional compliance resources, including additional 100 compliance officers and 250 beds.
Further to the above, the Minister has indicated that the Government intends to tackle disingenuous protection claims. In particular, harsher sanctions may be imposed on registered migration agents who encourage unmeritorious claims.
These changes have begun to be implemented and will be progressively rolled out over the next 12 months to ensure the integrity of Australia’s migration system is maintained.