The key reforms are:
· Renaming the Business Skills program to the Business Innovation and Investment program
· Reducing the number of visa subclasses from 13 to three. This will be achieved by:
§ removing the independent visa categories and other underutilised visa subclasses, and
§ absorbing the separate business owner and investor subclasses as streams of a single visa subclass
· Integrating the new Business Innovation and Investment visas with the skilled migrant selection model, SkillSelect, which will be launched on 1 July 2012
· Facilitating entry of entrepreneurs that have sourced venture capital funding in Australia
· Introducing an innovation points test for provisional visa applicants
· Granting access to flexibility provisions to achieve permanent residence and encourage innovative business
· Increasing asset thresholds to better align with the Australian business community, and
· Introducing visa criteria to improve the integrity of the program.
· Introducing a new Significant Investor visa. The attached materials provide further details on the specific changes. |
