The Aussie tech industry isn’t overly happy with new rules Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has introduced around skilled migration.
In an article published this morning by the Australian Financial Review, it was revealed that O’Neil introduced a ministerial direction to change how migration agents prioritise skilled visa applications.
According to the report, the direction removed 27 job roles – including ICT security specialists – from the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL).
As you would expect, this has the local industry confused and annoyed. If there’s anything the recent data breaches experienced by Optus and Medibank have shown, it’s that Australia needs as much tech talent as it can get. After all, the government does know we need an additional 650,000 tech workers by 2030.
Some have argued that Australia is already facing a crisis in having suitably qualified and experienced people in the IT sector, particularly in cybersecurity. One of those is Liam Dermody, who is security firm Darktrace’s Red Team director.
“Many industry commentators are speculating that the huge number of breaches we’ve had in Australia in recent weeks is fuelled by a skills gap and not having enough skilled IT workers on the ground,” he said.
“That’s probably an oversimplification but certainly a part of the root cause. In light of that, we need skilled migrants more than ever.”
The decision to reduce the ability for migrants from coming to Australia, who possess the skills needed to adequately protect our enterprises, is, according to Dermody, “baffling to say the least”.
While O’Neil said the changes would speed up visa processing times across all categories including cybersecurity and tech, the AFR quotes both Tech Council of Australia boss Kate Pounder and Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia chief Alexi Boyd as disagreeing. They instead expressed alarm at the sudden change made without industry consultation.
Per the AFR, job titles removed from the PMSOL related to tech and cyber skills include ICT security specialists, analyst programmers, developer programmers, software engineers and software and applications programmers. Other jobs removed include chief executives, accountants, engineers, veterinarians and chefs.
Highest priority for employer-sponsored visas will now go to healthcare or teaching professionals.
“This skill shortage has been slowly growing for a number of years, only to be made substantially worse due to migration restrictions implemented during the pandemic,” Darktrace’s Dermody added.
“The Australian government recognises this problem as it has listed ICT and Software and Application professionals in their top 20 skill shortages list.”
He said the decision does not line up with the government’s current messaging to industry that industry is not doing enough to protect their systems from data theft.