Australia Scraps ‘Golden Visa’ Programme For Wealthy Overseas Investors
Australia has reportedly decided to scrap a major visa programme that provided overseas wealthy investors with the right to live in the country.
The scheme, dubbed as ‘golden visa’, was halted after the government found that the visa programme was not delivering the desired economic outcomes.
“It has been obvious for years that this visa is not delivering what our country and economy needs,” Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil said in a statement on Monday.
After scrapping this programme, the government will be focusing on issuing more visas to skilled workers instead, capable “of making outsized contributions to Australia”.
The golden visa, introduced in 2012, offered High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) a way to gain permanent residency in the country.
It allowed foreign nationals to stay in Australia for up to five years if they invest at least $5 million in approved investments. Of this, a maximum of 60 percent can be invested in non-residential real estate, corporate bonds, and shares.
The programme was designed to attract more foreign businesses and investors into the country.
According to the country’s Home Affairs Department, more than 100,000 overseas migrants have used one of the BIIP streams to gain residency in Australia since 2012.
Of these, 85 percent are Chinese millionaires. Unlike other visa schemes, the golden visa did not require people to speak English and did not have any age limit.
Critics argued that the scheme only allowed wealthy foreign nationals to park illegal funds in the continent.
A review in 2016 showed that the policy had “potential for money laundering and other nefarious activities.”
Clancy Moore, the chief executive of Transparency International Australia, told the BBC: “‘For far too long corrupt officials and kleptocrats have used golden visas as a vehicle to park their illicit funds in Australia and arguably hide their proceeds of crime.”
Similar investment visa schemes have been scrapped in Canada, Britain, and Singapore amid allegations that they have been abused by wealthy individuals and failed to benefit the countries themselves.
