The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs charges a fee to process any visa applications. The complete list of charges is contained in this PDF . The fees are exceptionally high and in my opinion unfairly discriminative.

A table of fee charges for skilled immigration applications.

Skilled immigrants need to pony up $2000 AUD to apply. If your partner's English is broken then it is $700 more. So if you work in the US, in a high-tech industry, whose skills and knowledge would be valuable you have to fork out 2K to get a look in. That is a significant amount of money for an American to spend with absolutely zero guarantee of return. In countries of lesser wealth it is tantamount to extortion.

Capital and goods have been freed by the market economy, but labor still remains trapped behind protectionist barriers, often to ridiculous levels. I can understand not wanting to be flooded by large numbers immigrants, but 2K? That is way too high.

DIMIA has proved itself an inefficient department over the last couple of years, there is no reason why such a high fee needs to be charged to determine if an individual seeking a visa is sufficiently skilled to take part in the Australian economy.

Those fees need to lowered, to at a maximum of $200 AUD. An order of magnitude less than the current charge. DIMIA can improve the efficiency of its process to handle the increased load. We live in a world of information technology - it is achievable.

Then maybe some of the bright minds of the world who are in the late twenties and early thirties will bet on an immigration visa to Australia.