Political will to address visa processing delays

Everyone involved in Australia’s visa processing is aware of the significant delays in finalisation of visa applications across a wide range of subclasses. This is impacting on businesses as well as individuals. On 25 July 2022 Andrew Giles, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, announced that the Government has directed the Department of Home Affairs to devote more staff to addressing the backlog.

This has included moving staff who were previously dealing with border exemption applications back to visa processing areas. In particular the focus is on temporary skilled, student and visitor visa applications to enable applicants to travel to Australia to contribute to economic growth and labour shortages. It is hoped that this will result in a positive reduction in the current lengthy processing times.​

Andrew Giles’s media release in relation to this can be found at https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/AndrewGiles/Pages/processing-more-visas-faster.aspx