In the 2024–25 Budget, the government announced plans to introduce a pre-application ballot process for certain kinds of visas: Work and Holiday visas for nationals of China, Vietnam and India, and a new temporary visa for young professionals from India. The ballot process is new to the Australian visa system. So far, it has only been introduced for the Pacific Engagement visa, which opens for registration on 3 June 2024.

Legislation for visa ballot processes

The ballot process was legislated through the Migration Amendment (Australia’s Engagement in the Pacific and Other Measures) Act 2023, which amended the Migration Act 1958 to provide for a visa pre-application process to be conducted as part of the application validity criteria for particular visas. This amendment was made in the context of introducing the Pacific Engagement visa, a permanent visa for eligible nationals of designated Pacific island countries and Timor Leste. Up to 3,000 visas will be allocated each year. The pre-application process for this visa opens on 3 June 2024.

The legislation provides that a visa pre-application process may be applied via regulations to any specified visa, excluding certain humanitarian visas (subsections 46(4A) and 46(4B) and section 46C of the Migration Act). The Migration Regulations 1994 were amended in March 2024 to create the Pacific Engagement visa, specifying that an applicant ‘must be a selected participant in the applicable visa pre‑application process’ (regulation 1140). A determination was made on 1 May 2024 setting out the details for the ballot process for the Pacific Engagement visa. Similar amendments will be needed to implement ballot processes for new or existing visas.

Work and Holiday visas

The budget measure ‘Work and Holiday visa – visa pre-application process for certain Working Holiday Maker programs’ (Budget measures: budget paper no. 2: 2024–25, p. 9) states that the government will apply the pre-application ballot process to the Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visa for nationals of China, Vietnam and India from 2024–25.

Unlike most temporary visas, Work and Holiday visas for most participating countries (except the US) are capped each year (although the other visa in the Working Holiday Maker program, Working Holiday (subclass 417) visa, is uncapped; see the Department of Home Affairs Working Holiday Maker visa program report 30 June 2023 for further details). Applicants can only submit an application when the application status is ‘open’. Application status may be paused or suspended when the cap is close to being filled and, once the cap is reached, the status is ‘closed’ and no more applications can be lodged for the year. Caps only apply for first-year visas – Working Holiday Maker visa holders in Australia seeking a second or third year visa are not subject to caps.

China has the highest country cap at 5,000 per year. Ahead of the Budget, its status was listed as paused ‘due to a high volume of interest’. Media reports indicated there was some anger amongst potential applicants at being denied a chance at a visa. India’s program has not yet commenced, but is expected to be set at 1,000. The cap for Vietnam is 1,500 and has been filled for the 2023–24 year.

New visa for young professionals from India

The budget measure ‘Migration – Mobility Arrangement for Talented Early-professionals Scheme (MATES) and extending the validity of the Business Visitor visa for Indian nationals’ (Budget paper no. 2, pp. 7–8) states that the ballot process will also be used for a new visa for young professionals from India under the MATES program. This program is part of the Australia-India Migration and Mobility Partnership Arrangement agreed in May 2023. A media release from Immigration Minister Andrew Giles on 9 February 2024 stated that the program would commence as a pilot with 3,000 places for primary applicants from late 2024 (see also this departmental fact sheet).

The temporary visa will allow a stay of up to 2 years and will target those with qualifications in specific technology fields including renewable energy, mining, engineering, information and communication technology, artificial intelligence, financial technology, and agricultural technology. It will have an age limit of 18 to 30 years, and immediate family members will not count towards the cap of 3,000 places.

Rationale and reactions to the proposals

Although the ballot process is new to the Australian visa system, similar practices are used in other countries. The US ‘Green Card lottery’ allows certain nationalities to enter a ballot for a Diversity Immigrant Visa, granting permanent residency. However, Australia’s legislated model is more closely based on New Zealand’s Pacific Access Category visa ballot. Both the US and New Zealand visas are permanent visas, as is Australia’s Pacific Engagement visa, but the budget proposals will extend the ballot process to a limited number of capped temporary visa categories.

As noted above, demand from some Work and Holiday visa countries, including China and Vietnam, exceeds the available places. Demand for visa places from India could  be high, and experts have predicted the Pacific Engagement visa will be ‘very popular and massively oversubscribed’.

A ballot process could be seen as more equitable than the current first-come-first-served system used for the Work and Holiday visas – the Explanatory Memorandum for the Migration Amendment (Australia’s Engagement in the Pacific and Other Measures) Bill 2023 cites fairness as a reason for employing the ballot method for the Pacific Engagement visa, along with more efficient visa processing and shorter wait times for applicants (p. 3). The budget measure for the Work and Holiday visa ballot also states the process ‘will help to manage program demand and application processing times for these countries’ (Budget paper no. 2, p. 9).

For both ballot processes, there will be a charge of $25 to register (the same as proposed for the Pacific Engagement visa). If a person is selected to apply, a separate visa application charge applies: the charge for a Work and Holiday visa is currently $635 and a charge of $365 is proposed for the MATES visa. The budget measures are expected to produce a net increase in receipts of around $367.1 million over the forward estimates – primarily from the MATES measure (Budget paper no. 2, pp.7–9).

While there has not been a great deal of commentary on the ballots proposed in the Budget, one observer has suggested that ‘ballot systems tend to add a level of anxiety’ for applicants. See the Parliamentary Library’s Bills Digest for more discussion on the ballot proposal for the Pacific Engagement visa.