A Surveyors Australia webinar on 25 March will see government experts brief the surveying industry on migration matters.

The webinar will provide an update on key skilled migration pathways, including Employer Sponsored visas (subclasses 482, 494 and 186) and General Skilled Migration options (subclasses 491, 189 and 190).

The event, to be held from 12:00 noon to 1.00pm AEDT, will be an opportunity for business owners to hear directly from experts from within the Department of Home Affairs and Surveyors Australia.

With Australia facing a serious dearth of qualified surveyors, attracting skilled practitioners from overseas is one of the few ways in which the situation can be improved.

But skilled migration can be a bit of a minefield, so the webinar is intended help both surveying firms and individual surveyors understand their obligations, options and opportunities under the skilled migration program.

The webinar registration cost for Surveyors Australia members (including affiliate partner members from the CSNSW, CSV, CSSA and WAIS) is $50 plus GST. Non-members can register for $90 plus GST.

Assessing authority

As Spatial Source reported last month, the Institution of Surveyors New South Wales (ISNSW) is preparing to take over as the assessing authority for surveyors hoping to migrate to Australia.

The ISNSW was officially appointed as the new migration skills assessing authority for the ‘Surveyor occupation’ by the federal Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, in October last year.

The ‘Surveyor occupation’ is a formal designation under the ANZSCO 232212 classification, and does not include other professions with ‘surveyor’ or ‘surveying’ in their title, such as quantity surveying, valuation or general practice surveying, and building surveying.

The ISNSW cannot begin undertaking assessments, though, until the legislative instrument within the Migration Regulations 1994 is updated, the timeframe for which is still uncertain.