Param Jaswal is the Managing Director at the Imperial College of Australia in Melbourne. He's been navigating the visa system for more than 20 years, mainly for students wanting to study in Australia.
"It's still very complicated for an individual to go through the number of subclasses that are on the immigration website and just to identify which subclass will suit their particular requirement - for an individual it becomes very complex."
Australia currently offers 99 different types of visas, compared to the United States' 185. The Turnbull government's considering ways to reduce the number of categories here to around ten. Canberra migration agent Jason Browne believes while a simpler system would make it easier for applicants to do the paperwork themselves, their applications wouldn't necessarily be accepted.
"Immigration law is not easy. Individuals and businesses doing their own visa applications, there is going to be an increase in refusals and appeals. It's going to be very difficult to have just ten visa subclasses to handle a vast array of situations. No situation is the same, no client is the same, so it's going to be very difficult to even come up with a type of system that would be able to handle what the government is proposing."
The rationale behind the move is to to curb net migration and reduce the cost of the visa system, which the Home Affairs Department has labelled as 'an artefact of a bygone era'.
According to the Department, the volume of visa and citizenship applications is set to spike by around 50 per cent within the next decade to 13 million applications every year.
While Labor supports the idea of simplifying the system in principle, Shadow Immigration Minister Shayne Neumann does worry the move would create an underclass of migrants in Australia if pathways to permanent residency are closed off.
"Who can argue against visa simplification? But if it's a method by which the government tries to create an underclass in the country, that's not a good thing. We would have some concerns if the visa simplification resulted in greater complexity - ironically - and it made it more difficult for people to go through the legal process and making an application for a visa."
The federal government has received more than 200 public submissions on the policy, and most support retaining a pathway from some temporary stays in Australia to permanent residency. Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney Anna Boucher says the plan follows a number of changes in recent years that have reduced the opportunities for migrants to gain permanent residency in Australia, including reforms to the popular 457 skilled visa program.
"It could see firstly a wholesale change in what visa categories we have, and secondly a fundamental shift from Australia as a country of permanent settlement to one where temporary migration is more and more the status quo."
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is now waiting on advice from his department on the way forward. He's expected to reconsider this in the second half of the year.
Seema Chauhan say need for the hour is to ensure all stakeholders understand the system, which is not what proposed changes will achieve.
She also points out that in a perfect world visa rejection rate should be as less as possible but these changes can potentially increase it many folds.
