Australia is losing skilled technology workers amid a slowing down of the federal government’s visa processing for migrants with IT qualifications, industry bodies told a parliamentary inquiry in Melbourne on Friday.

Betsy Gregg, operations director of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) – which represents local tech workers and assesses migrants’ skills – told the joint standing committee on migration that visa processing time “is slowing down actively in IT”.

ACS, which Gregg said assesses the skills of “about 20,000 migrant professionals a year”, found in recent surveys that over 50 per cent of migrants it processed “just hadn’t heard back” from the federal government about their visa applications, she said.

“That’s 10,000 successfully assessed professionals who are not even getting an invitation,” Gregg told the inquiry chaired by Labor MP Steve Georganas.

Gregg added that ACS is now seeing more people request new skills assessments from the society because their previous ones had expired amid government processing delays.

“We are attempting to process about 50 per cent of our assessments within 27 days,” she said.

“We then say, ‘Our assessment will expire in two years,’ noting that skills may change, requirements may adjust.

“But now we're facing a point where more people are coming back to us and saying, ‘Can you please renew my skill assessment? Because I still haven't heard anything.’

"So that makes us look bad, but it makes everybody look bad as well.

“And we don't want to lower our standards, but we recognise these are people that are just stuck in the middle, and they've cleared every bar they could.”

Government shifts skilled visa priorities

Gregg said ACS had seen “a notable shift” in visa processing times since November 2025, as the federal government prioritised workers in other industries such as education, construction, and engineering.

Law enforcement and defence professionals who are already in Australia were then put at the front of the nation’s visa processing queue in July under a directive issued by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, followed by offshore workers in the same two industries.

Professionals in construction, healthcare, and teaching who applied from within Australia were the next prioritised.

The Department of Home Affairs has previously said the changes are aimed at supporting "key industries and strategically important occupations that are in the national interest".

Peita Davis, the director of skills, education, and research at the Business Council of Australia (BCA), told Friday’s committee hearing that technology not being prioritised under recent ministerial directions is causing the nation to lose out on new skills.

“Our tech companies are saying that this is a huge issue for them, particularly as we’re seeing these opportunities in Australia with AI and new tech,” she said.

Elizabeth Whitelock, chief executive of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), suggested that given the “longwinded” process to get a visa, job definitions in technology may change or become less relevant by the time a visa is secured.

"There needs to be something that's far more dynamic in terms of the reflection of AI particularly, and the skills that are required,” she said.

“What are the specialist elements that currently are limited or don't exist here in Australia?

“How do we pick that up and actually frame that in [the government’s] jobs list?”


The joint standing committee on migration is chaired by Labor MP Steve Georganas (centre). Image: Instagram

Tech workers ‘mucked around by the process’

Alex Avery, the founder and managing director of Australian tech consultancy Notitia, told the committee he knew a “brilliant” data scientist who was “mucked around by the [visa] process” and decided to leave Australia.

“There was no certainty, and she had to make a call – and ended up going to Ireland, of all places, who accepted her with open arms very, very quickly,” he said.

“Now she's in the US, making three or four times what she would have made in Australia.”

Avery suggested “it wasn't even the speed” of Australia’s visa processing which affected that data scientist, but its “uncertainty” and “lack of transparency”.

He added that while one of the four staff Notitia had sponsored as migrants was successfully processed in six months “about three or four years ago”, another “very, very similar” person’s application is now taking much longer.

“Someone with the equivalent skill set, equivalent educational background, and equivalent practical experience in Australia ... has been waiting more than 18 months, with no notice,” he said.

The Tech Council of Australia (TCA), which represents local and international technology firms, wrote in its January submission to the committee that its members found “skilled migration visa application outcomes have become unpredictable and inconsistent”.

“One member highlighted a recent Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) application taking over three months to be processed, despite the recently instituted a seven business day processing timeframe,” TCA said.

The organisation recommended the federal government “establish dedicated channels for business to access important information about skilled migration applications” and their expected timeframes.

ACS’s latest Australia’s Digital Pulse report, released earlier this month, found the nation’s technology workforce had shrunk for the very first time.

“In 2026, weaker technology employment growth suggests that past levels of migration may not be currently required, but this will change when demand rises again,” the report suggested.

“This makes keeping the channel open to migrants with technology skills an imperative to continued growth of Australia’s technology workforce.”

Intra-company visas a possible solution?

Davis from BCA suggested to the committee that streamlining visas which enable intra-company transfers – the movement of staff between locations within a company – would be particularly “critical” in the tech sector.

“This is what we’re hearing a lot from our tech members – that tech changes rapidly, and we don’t necessarily have all the skills that are required, but they may have that in their Silicon Valley office, for example,” she said.

“If we can bring that talent really quickly to Australia, Australia will only benefit.”

Gregg from ACS said, “As an assessing authority, I'm just mindful of the quality assurance and potential exploitation that can come from arrangements like this, and would note that that would need to be considered in its design.”

Whitelock from AIIA added, “We represent sole traders through to multinationals, and they all are struggling to get skills.

“... If there was an opportunity to get special skills into the country that would benefit that sector, we should certainly look at it because they're invariably the ones who are struggling to find the people.”

ACS is the publisher of Information Age.