飞出国：2017年4月18日，澳大利亚政府宣布457签证将于2018年3月被新的TSS签证所取代。TSS签证将会包含短期（两年）签证和中期（四年）签证。可申请职业从 651 个减少为 435 个。
Reforms to Australia’s temporary employer sponsored skilled migration programme—abolition and replacement of the 457 visa
From 19 April 2017, for the existing 457 visa:
- Occupation lists: The occupation lists that underpin the 457 visa will be significantly condensed from 651 to 435 occupations, with 216 occupations removed and access to 59 other occupations restricted.
- Of the 435 occupations, access to 24 occupations has been restricted to regional Australia (e.g. occupations relating to farming and agriculture).
- The Consolidated Sponsored Occupation List (CSOL) will also be renamed as the new Short-term Skilled Occupations List (STSOL) and will be updated every six months based on advice from the Department of Employment.
- The other occupations list used for skilled migration, the Skilled Occupations List (SOL) will be renamed the new Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL). This list will contain occupations that have been assessed as being of high value to the Australian economy and aligning to the Government’s longer term training and workforce strategies.
- A separate fact sheet about the occupation lists’ changes will be issued.
- Validity period: The maximum duration of 457 visas issued from this date for occupations that are on the STSOL will be two years. Occupations on the MLTSSL will continue to be issued for a maximum duration of four years.
2017年4月19日，Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) 将会代替SOL列表；Short-term Skilled Occupation List (STSOL)将会代替CSOL列表。在2017年4月19日将会有200个职位移出CSOL列表。
The numbers of jobs eligible for the two-year and four-year visa streams will be slashed, with 216 occupations ranging from antique dealer to fisheries officer to shoe maker cut from a list of 651 professions on the 457 list.
“We are putting jobs first, we are putting Australians first,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. "We are an immigration nation, but the fact remains that Australian workers must have priority for Australian jobs.
“Australian workers must have priority for Australian jobs, so we are abolishing the 457 visa, the visa that brings temporary foreign workers into our country. We will no longer allow 457 visas to be passports to jobs that could and should go to Australians.”
Labor leader Bill Shorten – who has vowed to “crack down on dodgy” 457 visas – immediately suggested “the only job Malcolm Turnbull cares about saving is his own”.
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Both sides of politics have raised concerns about the use of 457 visas in recent years and adopted more nationalist postures about the need to protect Australian jobs.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson claimed credit for the changes, arguing “the government will deny their tough talk on immigration and plan to ban 457 visas is because of One Nation, but we all know the truth”.
Accounting giant KPMG criticised the decision, saying “there is no evidence the current system is not working”.
Mr Turnbull dismissed that claim, arguing the abolition of the 457 visa was “a decision of my government … this has been a careful exercise in policy development”.
People currently on a 457 visa, which lasts for four years, will be exempt from the new regulations.
Application fees will rise from a flat $1060 to $1150 for the two-year visa and $2400 for the four-year visa.
Less than 1 per cent of Australia’s 12 million-strong workforce, or 95,758 people, held a primary 457 visa as of September 30, 2016.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said that for the two-year stream, which could be renewed for two years, “there won’t be permanent residency outcomes at the end of that. In relation to the medium-term stream which, as the Prime Minister pointed out, is targeted at higher skills, [there will be] a much shorter skills list.”
He said the government would work with companies to ensure they met labour market testing requirements, and warned “there will be a particular focus on companies that have an unnecessarily high proportion of 457 or foreign workers in jobs as well. There will be a number of ways in which we can clamp down.”
The 457 program was introduced by the former Howard government in 1996-97. Mr Turnbull said that it had failed under Labor and would therefore be abolished.
KPMG’s national leader of immigration practice, Michael Wall, said: “It is a demand-driven program, and the number of 457 visas has been on a decline over the last few years.”
“This move does not align with Australia’s stated commitment to increasing innovation, and causes uncertainty for foreign companies considering investing or doing business here.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox welcomed the decision to axe the “high-value” program, because of “exaggerations of its misuse”.
“Ending that visa category, adding limits and more clearly defining its successor visas will help draw the focus back to the program’s primary purpose: addressing the pockets of skill shortages that persist in our economy,” he said.
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