Permanent migration program
Migrants can apply for permanent residency in Australia under various different visas.
The government provided for 190,000 for permanent migration in 2015-16.
Of these places, 128,550 are allocated for skilled migrants, 57,400 for family migrants and 565 for "former residents who have maintained close ties with Australia".
They can be sponsored under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, or they can have lived in a specified regional area for two years and worked in that area for a minimum of one year.
The sponsorship scheme is designed to allow eligible relatives to sponsor family members to join them in the regional area.
Secondary applicants, including children, can be covered in these applications.
Other paths to permanent residency include the family stream and the business skills stream, Australian National University senor migration law academic Marianne Dickie told SBS News.
She said the time it took to get various permanent visas approved could vary widely and the family pathways could take the longest.
Applications for parent visas are placed in a queue and once the allocation for that year is exhausted, no more applications will be approved, but will remain in the queue.
"Parent [visas] are hard, children [visas] are not as hard and partner's visas have gone up to $6000," Mrs Dickie said.
Partner visas were two year provisional visas that were reviewed after two years to ensure that couple was still together before the partner was allowed permanent residency, Mrs Dickie said.
She said visas for other family members were given the lowest priority and could take two or three years to get approved, and carers visas could take even longer.
