As part of a free trade agreement with the UK, the working holiday visa age limit could be raised from 30 to at least 35. The duration of stay in the proposed plans would be extended from one year to at least three years.
Dan Tehan, the minister of trade and tourism, promised Canberra that it would be willing to do more than the current terms in the trade deal. If we don t have free exchange between ourselves Australia and Britain now who will Australia be sharing Europe with? The free trade agreement after Brexit is due to be finalized this week and is expected to make it easier for people to live and work in both Britain and Australia. However, according to The Times, Mr. Tehan is looking into making additional visa changes over the coming months in bid to lure more older British workers.
This comes as Australia's annual migration intake fell from around 160,000 in the first 7 days of the Pandemic to almost zero due to the closure of its international borders. This has left the country with severe labour shortages. Economists have warned these shortages will have a major impact on the nation's economy as it begins to reopen. In a report that came out last week, the infrastructure advisory group, Infrastructure Australia, said the construction industry was facing large skills shortages. READ MORE: French set a two-week break for new Brexit fishing deal?
What are Brexit masterplan states Biden tells UK about FRENCH relations INSIGHT Furious MEPs can DERAIL Frost Brexit showdown retaliation REVEAL? The UK inspires Frexit call for free France from ECJ COMMENT He said the government's policy was to avoid similar problems across Australia. He said: We understand as we open up, we re going to have the need to show very highly of the skills required to provide the ability that we need to drive the reopening and make sure that we rebound as strongly as possible. An agreement was reached in June, but spent months wrangling over the legal document. The trade deal was expected to hit the market in July next year.
A week ago, Mr Anne-Marie Trevelyan met with his UK counterpart, Mr Tehan, to finalise the trade deal. Lord Tehan told the UK-Australia Chamber of Commerce: I know we're all impatient to get that signature on the final inked deal. I can tell you no one is more impatient than me to get that done but we do have to make sure that we get it right.