Don't Cut, Fix It: Ai Group Tells Canberra How Skilled Migration Should Work
News · 2026-08-25 · 3 min read
Australia's skilled migration debate has a new and powerful participant. The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) is among the most influential employer associations in the country, and it has now formally stated its position. The core message is plain: keep the intake, repair the system.
If you are weighing up a skilled move to Australia, this is worth knowing, because it shows what employers are pushing for and where the pressure on policy is likely to sit over the next 12 months.
The submission in brief
Ai Group put its case to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration's inquiry into the value of skilled migration. Chief executive Innes Willox argued that businesses need predictability, not politics, from the migration system. In his view, housing, infrastructure, manufacturing, health and aged care, the sectors that make modern Australia work, cannot operate without migrant talent, because domestic training is not supplying workers fast enough.
What employers are asking government to do
1. Maintain current numbers. Ai Group is not lobbying for a bigger program. It wants permanent skilled migration kept at current levels. Vacancies in construction, energy and care are still higher than local supply can meet, and cutting numbers could stall major projects that are already in progress.
2. Speed up recognition of overseas qualifications. A long-standing frustration for employers and migrants is that recognising overseas qualifications and licences in Australia is slow and uneven. Ai Group wants it streamlined for occupations in critical shortage. The effect would be a shorter gap between a visa grant and the day a migrant starts work.
3. Make processing faster and more predictable. The Skills in Demand visa and the Subclass 186 (Employer Nomination Scheme) are singled out as visas where delays create real uncertainty. Businesses plan staffing months ahead, and unreliable turnaround times can do as much harm as the skills gap itself.
4. Explain migration's value to the public. Ai Group also wants a proper communication strategy showing ordinary Australians how skilled migration supports the essential services, housing and infrastructure they use every day. This shows industry increasingly accepts that public opinion, as well as policy design, drives political willingness on migration settings.
The wider debate
All of this arrives at a sensitive point. Migration numbers remain politically heated, and some voices are pressing to reduce intake as a tool for housing affordability. Ai Group rejects that framing directly. Its argument is that shrinking skilled migration would add to, not ease, pressure on housing delivery, infrastructure timelines and business investment.
So where does that leave migration agents, employers and people planning to apply? The settings are not fixed. Committee hearings in the months ahead could affect visa processing times, occupation lists and sponsorship pathways for years.
Protect yourself while the rules are debated
Periods of policy debate attract opportunists. Rely on official government sources for any update on this inquiry or on visa processing, and verify any claim about occupation lists or sponsorship before acting on it. A genuine employer will never ask you to pay for a job offer, and nobody can promise faster processing in exchange for cash. Prepare your qualification documents properly and make decisions on confirmed information only.
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