Australia visa reform on hold until after election
July 23 2010 by Liam Clifford
The overhaul of the Australian visa system has been put on temporary hold following the announcement of the August 21 general election.
Bob Correll, chief information officer for the Department of Immigration
and Citizenship (DIAC), told the CIO Summit 2010 this week that their
plans to complete the second drop of the changes by August 21 would not
be met.
This means the implementation of a generic visa portal, enabling more
straightforward processing of Australia's 140 different types of visas,
has been delayed to an as-yet unscheduled date.
The portal is one of 12 initiatives laid out by the DIAC as part of the
Systems for People programme, the four-year A$500 million
transformational change process devised after the disastrous Palmer
Report into the Australian immigration system in 2005.
The delay will have a domino effect on the other forthcoming
initiatives, as well as a second transformational change programme
scheduled for the next five years.
The second programme will halve the different types of visa from 140 to
70 and enable applications for 95 per cent of them to take place online.
New prime minister, Julia Gillard, announced the snap election last
week, taking advantage of the current rebound insupport for her
narrowly-ahead Labor party and a robust economy. 
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