Bureaucratic Intransigence Frustrates Hiring Young Overseas Academicians and Researchers. (June 2, 2010)

According to The Australian's Guy Healy, the Federal Government has defended its decision to deny foreign academics and tutors priority visa processing, It claims that the Employer Nomination Scheme is a sufficient mechanism of inducement. However, to invoke the Employer Nomination Scheme a university would need to offer permanent employment and guarantee a minimum of three years in the position. But the Go8's Director of Policy, Bernadine Caruana, notes that many research positions are funded through grants, i.e. term of funding and often less than three years.

Ms Caruana went on to say: "Permanent residency boosts a person's ability to apply for competitive research council grants to continue to fund their research, so the short-term option is not a good one either," she told Mr Healy. "We understand the government aims to slash visa classes by 50 per cent, so a special visa class for researchers is unlikely." and indicated that there should be increased flexibility in determining the requirements for existing visa categories.

Furthermore, she believes that temporary residents should also be eligible to apply for research grants, which would assist Australia in being able to attract high quality young international researchers.

In the view of the Go8 the current complex visa requirements militated against attracting the best and brightest of young research scientists early in their careers.

In rebuttal Skills Australia's secretariat head Sue Beitz told Mr Healy: "[I]t recognises the problem but questioned whether independent migration would be appropriate. Even where overseas lecturers had a research background in an area of demand, there was no assessing authority or criteria to assess their suitability."

Assuming Guy Healy's reporting is accurate, this may be the first time a member of the bureaucracy has offered lack of competence as an explanation for policy.