There has been much media speculation and statements from government about the number of permanent visas to be granted under the 2018/19 migration program.
In my view the numbers for the program year up to June 2019 are going to be much closer to the cap of 190,000 rather than the previous year’s 163,000.
The Prime Minister seems to be trying to please the extreme right of his party and also garner some extra votes in the upcoming Federal Election. The timing of the steps he has announced (State Government meetings in December 2018 and a decision to be announced in the Budget of April 2019) will not allow any changes to impact on the 2018/19 figures. Rather they will reflect on the cap for 2019/2020. (If they are in government).
Also the current government is likely to be not returned in the upcoming Federal Election where the opposition Labor party are a strong favourite to win. The Labor policy is likely to be much more generous to migrants from past history.
Finally the amount of current permanent visas already lodged and waiting a long time for their decisions, and the 2,500 invitations given to the 189 category over each of the last few months all point to a program much more likely to be near 180000/190000.
For now until we hear something different we will assume that the 189 invitations are likely to stay around 2500 each month as this will be consistent with the number of invitations issued in 2015/2016 and 2016/17 (just over 30,000 per year) before the now disposed Peter Dutton had his change in policy for 2017/18.
(Any questions to query@iscah.com please)