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Australian government announces plan to lift more border restrictions

Fully vaccinated international students and eligible visa holders will be able to set foot on Australian shores from the beginning of next month without the need for an inward travel exemption, bringing the country another step closer to pre-COVID times.

In making the announcement on Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the return of temporary visa holders is a “major milestone” in the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

“We have done this in an orderly way. At first, we said, let’s get Australians home fully vaccinated, and that’s been occurring from the first of this month. So from the first of next month, we will welcome back students, start looking back at the skilled visas that are needed to ensure we are able to take full advantage of the economic recovery that we are working to secure,” Mr Morrison said during a press conference.

Expanding on the federal government’s decision to open borders, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said around 200,000 visa holders, including international students, humanitarian visa holders, provisional family visa holders and working holiday visa holders, across 28 subclasses are expected to return as part of the reopening phase.

“We are working on a figure of 200,000, it may well be more than that, but we will be actively looking to bring as many people into Australia as soon as we possibly can,” she said.

Ms Andrews, however, did not clarify how many more places out of the allocated spots available for the skill stream in this year’s Migration Program will be made available in each visa category.

The 2021-2022 Migration Program currently has an overall planning level of 160,000 places, including 79,600 places for the skill stream, 13,750 in the humanitarian program, while there is no cap on the overall student intake.

Source: sbs.com.au