Fact Sheet 20 - Migration Program Planning Levels
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Australia's permanent immigration program has two components – Migration, for Skilled, Family and Special Eligibility Stream migrants and Humanitarian, for refugees and others in humanitarian need.
The planning level for the 2008–09 Migration Program is set at 190 300 places. The Humanitarian Program is set at 13 500 places.
This maintains the Government’s commitment to an immigration policy which seeks to balance social, economic, humanitarian and environmental objectives.
Humanitarian Program
The Humanitarian Program for 2008-09 comprises:
- Refugees from overseas - 6500 places
- Special Humanitarian Program - more than 7000 places (this includes places required for onshore needs).
See: Fact sheet 60 Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program
Migration Program
The 2008–09 Migration Program is set at 190 300 places. This represents an increase of 19.8 per cent over 2007-08 Program year.
The 2008-09 Migration Program comprised of:
- 56 500 places for family migrants who are sponsored by family members already in Australia
- 133 500 places for skilled migrants who gain entry essentially because of their work or business skills
- 300 places for special eligibility migrants and people who applied under the Resolution of Status category and have lived in Australia for 10 years.
The skill balance of the program has been maintained with around 70 per cent of places in the Skill Stream.
Program Range
The program will be delivered close to the planning level depending on:
- application rates in demand driven categories such as partners, children and employer nominated and business categories
- the take up of state-specific and regional migration categories to achieve a better dispersal of the intake
- the extent of national skill shortages and the ability to attract migrants to these
- the availability of high standard applicants in the skilled categories.
Caps
The delivery of a balanced Migration program may require caps (or limits) to be placed on Parent or Other Family visa subclasses.
See: Fact sheet 21 Managing the Migration program
Further information is available on the department's web site.
See: www.immi.gov.au
The department also operates a national telephone service inquiry line.
Telephone: 131 881
Hours of operation: Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm (recorded information available outside these hours) for the cost of a local call anywhere in Australia.
Fact Sheet 20. Produced by the National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra.
Revised 9 July 2008.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2008.