With the return of government at the recent election, it is now very likely the Department will introduce two skilled regional visas, subclass 494 and subclass 491. These new visa will come into effect from 16 November 2019.

There are also new points allocation rules for subclass 491 visa as well as existing General Skilled Migration visas subclass 189 and 190 visas.

The changes to the points test effective favour single (non-married applicants) or those that have skilled spouse with high level English. They also favour regional migration.
There will be a repeal of the subclass 187 (RSMS visa), which is unpopular with the Department of Immigration and subclass 489 (Regional Provisional Visa).