As part of its efforts to boost Australia's relations with Pacific Island nations, Labor promised to establish a new visa category to allow up to 3,000 Pacific Island and Timor-Leste residents to permanently migrate to Australia each year.
"An Albanese Government will… boost our people to people links across the Pacific family by encouraging more Pacific permanent migration to Australia through a new Pacific Engagement Visa," states an April 27, 2022 joint media statement from Labor's Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally, Brendan O'Connor, Michelle Rowland, Julie Collins and Pat Conroy.
According to a policy document available on the ALP's website, the Pacific Engagement Visa will be "allocated annually by a ballot or lottery process modelled on New Zealand's Pacific Access Resident Category visa" and will commence in July 2023.
"Places would be allocated from within Australia's overall permanent migration program," the document says.
While Labor notes that "detailed design still needs to be done", it envisages applicants being aged 18 to 45, with them or their partners being required to have a job offer in Australia and some level of English.
A separate policy page on the ALP website also adds that applicants selected by ballot would have eight months to obtain a full-time job offer in Australia.
There will also be country-specific quotas within the overall quota of 3,000 visas and applicants will be able to apply from either their home countries or from Australia if they are already in the country on a temporary visa.
According to Mary Crock from the University of Sydney, the Government does not need to pass any legislation in order to establish a new visa category nor is legislation required to impose caps on the number of such visas granted.
"The current system makes it very easy to create and abolish visa subclasses using regulations that are made by the Minister and laid before Parliament after the fact," Professor Crock, who is co-director of the Sydney Centre for International Law, explained.
"[Regulations] can be disallowed but otherwise roll ahead without opposition."
Indeed, as outlined in the Parliamentary Library Briefing Book for the 46th Parliament, published in July 2019:
"The structure of the Migration Act 1958 (the Act) means new visa categories and changes to eligibility generally occur via amendments to the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Regulations) and other legislative instruments as opposed to amendments to the Act.
"The Minister tables relevant amendments to the Regulations, which the Parliament can choose to disallow. However, changes can also be made via other legislative instruments, which may not be disallowable, such as the language test requirements instrument for temporary skilled visas. There is often little public debate around these types of measures."
But Professor Crock additionally confirmed that in order to create a ballot system for the awarding of Pacific Engagement Visas, the government must amend the Migration Act.
