Ballot to make 3000 Pacific nationals permanent in Australia

Australia will make changes to his visa system to help solve the country’s workforce problems.

Australia will launch a green card-style visa ballot to bring 3000 Pacific workers and their families to the country every year.

Pacific Minister Pat Conroy said the change to Australia’s permanent migration system would be a “critical way” of improving, and building people-to-people links with the Pacific family.

Legislation willbe introduced into parliament on Thursday.

Applicants from Timor-Leste and Pacific island countries would be first selected by ballot, then need to secure a written offer for a full time job in Australia.

“It is revolutionary and it will deepen our ties to a region that is critical to our future,” he told ABC News.

“This is part of (our) government using every lever of statecraft to increase our engagement in the region.

“We have increased our foreign aid to the Pacific, our military and security co-operation. We have 35,000 Pacific workers filling labour shortages here and sending back half a billion dollars of income to their communities every year.”

Pacific Minister Pat Conroy will introduce the Bill on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Mr Conroy said the ballot was in addition to the Pacific Australia labour mobility scheme, which provides work placements between nine months and four years.

“The Pacific engagement visa we’re introducing today is different. This is about permanent migration,” he said.

“This is allocating 3000 spots to Pacific families each year to make a new life in Australia, to deepen the Pacific diaspora in Australia and deepen our people-to-people links.

“Those people have to have jobs in this country and they can bring their families.”

The opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews said the Coalition acknowledged there was a “need” for skilled and unskilled workers in Australia.

“Now, I have not received a briefing on that policy, but I would be very happy to be briefed on that policy position and how the government proposes that that will work,” she said.

“I am open to looking at whatever solutions the government actually has to make sure that we continue to look at how we are going to meet the skilled workforce, the unskilled workers that are needed here in Australia, because it is critical.”