Visa uncertainty for foreign workers looms as federal election nears

With the 2025 federal election mere days away, businesses that rely on foreign workers must show urgency when attempting to secure residency for their staff as – depending on the result – the process could soon become more strenuous.

Securing residency or visa sponsorship for foreign workers already poses enough headaches for Australian employers, with the various processes often proving to be slow and strenuous.

HR Leader recently spoke to immigration lawyer Cherie Wright from Vialto Partners, who shared some insight into these processes and how they may soon be further impacted depending on the result of the 2025 federal election.

Wright first touched on the processing times for workers who are attempting to obtain permanent residency through employer-sponsored programs and how the sponsorship pathways have adapted to ensure that foreign workers aren’t forced to subside in unsafe workplaces.

“The processing times at the moment are around 18 months from date of lodgement for permanent residency under the employer-sponsored program,” said Wright.

“One of the pathways to apply for permanent residency is where you have worked in Australia on a sponsored 482 visa for at least two years. It used to be the case that you had to have worked with your employer who was sponsoring you for permanent residence for two years.”

“But now the rules have changed from December last year to allow you to count time spent working for other employers on the 482 towards that two-year period. So, the purpose behind that was really to ensure that you didn’t have 482 visa holders who were perhaps staying in an unsafe workplace just to get permanent residency.”

With immigration and migration cuts being a major talking point throughout the election campaign, Wright called on employers who may have employees in line for their current permanent residency application to file them as soon as possible.

“If you’re eligible now, my advice is [to] lodge now. If your visa is expiring, or you’re coming up to those two years [on the 482], you really need to be considering lodging a PR application as soon as possible,” said Wright.

“Where our clients would be a little bit nervous in terms of a change of government is a question of whether or not there’ll be any further changes introduced as a result of that government change.”

“Normally, when you do have a change of government, there’s a bit of tinkering that happens with the program, and given that we have just recently had these [recent] changes, there’s a little bit of nervousness around that ‘are we going to have yet another change?’”