To help remedy the situation I decided to write about migration myself. Since I am a migrant myself, I know how the system works as I went through the system myself. I also know that not all migrants are going through the same system as I did. There are many types of migrants, and their experience and reality of migration varies dramatically. I personally saw different kind of migrants with completely different situation and prospects compare to myself.
Couple of years ago I already wrote about this topic once, but it was poorly structured and worded, so I decided to write it anew.
I will be being from the very beginning. There were at least two distinct waves of migration since mid 90s. There were more before that, but I cannot judge them much as they happened way before I was born. They say back then (50s -60s) you could get 10 pounds for moving to Australia or even get a free land for your farm somewhere in the outback. In my time (2000s) you had to pay department of immigration $2500 just to look at your application. The only explanation to that is that application is 20+ pages long and there is lots of supporting documents to process.
First Wave - Skilled Migration - mid 90s to late 2000s
First wave that I was part of was skilled migration. Back then people complained that there are not enough doctors in Australia and you had to book one month in advance to see a GP. The solution they came up with was to convince foreign doctors to come to Australia and so Skilled Migration was born.
In addition to doctors, government decided to add other professions that are in short supply, for example accountants as well as IT professionals because IT was new and hot back then and government did not want to fall behind in tech. Other professions were available too, but they had fewer points awarded thus pushing your approval bar higher. There was a many pages long list of all recognised professions, each with different number of points available. It's likely still available on immigration website.
To simplify it worked as follows: you education and profession decided you immigration prospects. If you have a profession a country really needs (doctor, accountant), your migration will be relatively easy and streamlined. If you have somewhat average profession, they could let you in if you had a lot of qualification and experience. If you had a profession the country does not need as we already have plenty of locals doing it, they you will be told Australia is closed permanently and you cannot migrate here, unless it is to spend your money here and come back home. Blocked for immigration professions include ecology experts, teachers, lawyers (unless from Common Law country), fishers (locals do that enough already) and more.
There were other requirements too, like health (no-disabilities), English language proficiency and more. Finally, there was age. Government did not want people close to retirement to come here and almost immediately fall on government pensions. People between 18 and 25 got maximum points and then every 5 years will cut 5 points off your total, making passing it harder and harder. Cut off age was 45 and if you are older than that, too bad, Australia is closed for you permanently.
One subtype of this program was student migration. If you do not have the desired profession but willing to learn it, you can come and study in Australian University and after graduation you can get a skilled visa with permanent resident status with naturalisation pathway. All that has to be paid out of pocket and on double rate compared to locals.
All in all, it was rather realistic, even cynical system that will bring the skills country needs, while filter out those who are not needed here. No education beyond school, you cannot come here. Uni degree but in ecology or liberal arts, the same as for school only. Too old, also no go. Disabled, same. Back that I did not care for any of that, I qualified and could change drab cold dictatorial Russia with crazy Putin and his equally crazy supporters for a tropical paradise of one of the wealthiest countries in the world. I am pretty sure I was not the only one who thought this way.
Despite strict requirements, applicants were many. Somewhat well-off and educated inhabitants of various dictatorships like China and Russia were very eager to escape their oppressive nations. Thus, demand was always higher than available quotas.
Overtime as country was managed to plug its shortages of certain skills, it could afford to be even more selective, and requirements got even tougher. Higher language skills, more points and so on. It's probably much harder to get this visa now compared to when I applied and got it.
Life on Skilled migration program was quite cozy for the most part. [continue later]
It all ended with a financial Crisis of 2008. Not program itself, it got it requirements toughened to really reduce intake of skilled migrants. However, by that point Australia had enough professionals to fill in skilled work no one knew how to do. Now they needed people to do work no one wanted to do.
Second Wave, Unskilled Migration
[continue later]
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