Ministerial Direction 119 Explained: What It Means for Construction & Healthcare Employers

 

Ministerial Direction 119: Why Australia’s New Visa Priorities Won’t Build Houses or Staff Hospitals

On 25 July 2026, Ministerial Direction 119 replaced Direction 105 and changed the order in which the Department of Home Affairs considers skilled visa applications. It was presented as a measure to get the right skills into the right occupations, with construction elevated to priority status for the first time and a stated focus on housing.

Read on its own terms, that is a welcome development. Read carefully, it has a gap in the middle of it that undermines the purpose the Direction says it serves.

This article sets out what Direction 119 actually does, which nominations and visas it touches, and why we think its structure works against the two workforce problems it was designed to address.

 

What Direction 119 does — and what it does not do

Direction 119 is made under section 499 of the Migration Act 1958. It directs departmental delegates on the order in which applications are considered. It is important to be precise about its limits, because a good deal of commentary has not been.

• It does not change eligibility. The Direction says so expressly at paragraph 5(7): applicants must still meet the requirements in the Act and Regulations.
• It does not change the skilled occupation lists.
• It does not refuse anyone. Nobody is worse off in law because of Direction 119.
• It does change who waits, and for how long — and when processing times run into years, order becomes outcome.

It also applies to applications already on hand, not only to new lodgements, and it captures the Skills in Demand (subclass 482) program for the first time.

 

The new order of priority

The order is identical for nomination applications (section 7) and visa applications (section 8):

Look closely at what is missing.

There is no offshore tier for construction, healthcare or teaching. Those occupations receive priority only where the applicant is already in Australia. An applicant offshore in one of those occupations falls into priority 5 — the lowest category available — alongside every other offshore applicant in every other occupation.

Law enforcement and defence occupations do have a dedicated offshore tier. The drafters plainly knew how to write one. They chose not to write one for the workers who build homes and staff hospitals.

An intensive care nurse in Manila now ranks below an onshore applicant in any occupation at all.

 

The contradiction in the Direction’s own preamble

Paragraph 5(3) of Direction 119 states:

“Prioritising skilled migrants in occupations supporting law enforcement and Defence, and in healthcare, teaching, construction with a focus on housing, ensures the skilled migration program is providing the right skills in the right occupations.”

The Direction ties the construction priority to housing in its own words. It then withholds that priority from every applicant who is not already in the country.

This is not an inference drawn from the policy. It is a comparison of two parts of the same instrument.

 

Which nominations and visas are affected

Nominations (Schedule A)

Note that nomination applications for a change of employer are excluded from Direction 119 altogether.

Visas (Schedule B)

Twelve visa classes are captured. Several are closed to new applicants and appear because applications remain on hand or transitional cohorts survive.

Construction: a priority that cannot add a single worker

Australia is not building homes fast enough, and the constraint is people.

Against that background, consider what an onshore construction priority actually achieves.

In a market where every construction occupation is in national shortage, a qualified tradesperson already in Australia is not waiting at home for a visa decision. They are on a site. Moving their application up the queue is a good outcome for that individual, and we welcome it. It does not put one additional pair of hands on a building site, because those hands are already there.

The only cohort capable of adding net capacity to the construction workforce is the cohort outside Australia. That is precisely the cohort Direction 119 places last.

We have made the queue faster for the people who cannot increase supply, and slowest for the only people who can.

 

Which occupations count as construction

The definition is broad, and worth knowing if you sponsor in this sector:

• ANZSCO Sub-Major Group 33 — Construction Trades Workers
• ANZSCO Sub-Major Group 82 — Construction and Mining Labourers
• 1331 Construction Managers; 2321 Architects and Landscape Architects; 2332 Civil Engineering Professionals
• 3121 Architectural, Building and Surveying Technicians; 3126 Safety Inspectors; 3129 Other Building and Engineering Technicians
• 3222 Sheetmetal Workers; 3223 Structural Steel and Welding Trades Workers
• 7111 Clay, Concrete, Glass and Stone Processing Machine Operators; 7121 Crane, Hoist and Lift Operators; 7212 Earthmoving Plant Operators
• 341111 Electrician (General) and 341112 Electrician (Special Class)

 

Healthcare: the aged care contradiction

The healthcare position is, if anything, harder to defend than the construction one.

Direction 119’s healthcare definition expressly includes three occupations: Aged or Disabled Carer (423111), Nursing Support Worker (423312) and Personal Care Assistant (423313).

Those are the same three occupations covered by the Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement — the pathway the Commonwealth built specifically so that aged care providers could recruit overseas workers into roles they cannot fill locally. To use it, a provider must negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding with the relevant union and lodge it with the Department.

So the position is this. Government creates a bespoke industry labour agreement to bring carers into Australia from overseas. Government then issues a Direction giving those same occupations priority processing — but only if the carer is already in Australia. A provider who has done everything the first policy asked of them, including negotiating with a union, finds their offshore candidate in the lowest processing tier the system has.

The same logic applies across the sector. Overseas-trained doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, medical scientists, psychologists and social workers are all within the healthcare definition. All of them lose the priority the moment they apply from outside Australia — which is, of course, where the additional workforce is.

Which occupations count as healthcare

• ANZSCO Sub-Major Group 25 — Health Professionals
• ANZSCO Minor Group 411 — Health and Welfare Support Workers
• 2346 Medical Scientists; 2721 Counsellors; 2723 Psychologists; 2725 Social Workers; 3112 Medical Technicians
• 423111 Aged or Disabled Carer; 423312 Nursing Support Worker; 423313 Personal Care Assistant

The change nobody is talking about: regional employers went backwards

Direction 119 removed two things that used to attract processing priority: accredited sponsor status, and being a business in a regional area.

The consequences have had almost no coverage, yet they are significant. Rural hospitals, regional aged care facilities and country builders are the employers least able to recruit from an onshore pool, because onshore candidates gravitate to the capitals. They were the employers most dependent on a processing advantage. They have lost it, at the same time as the offshore candidates they rely on were placed in the lowest tier.

Accredited sponsors, typically the larger, better-resourced, more compliant employers the Department itself accredited, also lost their standalone advantage.

Who gains and who loses

 

What would work better?

Criticism is easier than a remedy, so here is what we would change.

• Write an offshore tier for construction, healthcare and teaching. Law enforcement and defence already have one. It is two paragraphs of drafting, and it does not require legislation — Direction 119 was signed by the Minister and commenced the following day.
• Pair processing reform with skills and licensing recognition. This is the fair criticism of our position, and we accept it. A fast visa achieves little if a qualified electrician or an overseas-trained nurse then waits months on state licensing or registration. Priority processing without recognition reform relocates the bottleneck rather than removing it. Both are needed.
• Restore a regional processing priority. The employers with the least capacity to recruit onshore should not have been the ones to lose their advantage.
• Be candid about the demand side. More migration increases housing demand and supply. That is a legitimate argument and deserves a proper answer rather than a slogan. Ours is that a tradesperson builds materially more dwellings than they occupy, and a carer enables more people to remain in their homes than they displace.

What employers should do now?

• Check where your candidates are. Location at the time of application now drives processing order. For some candidates, timing a lodgement while they are lawfully onshore will materially change their position.
• Do not assume accreditation still helps your processing time. It does not, and workforce plans built on that assumption need to be revisited.
• Lodge complete applications. With priority now driven by cohort rather than sponsor quality, requests for further information are more costly than they used to be.
• Reassess offshore recruitment timelines. If your plan depends on offshore candidates in construction or healthcare, build in a longer runway than you needed twelve months ago.
• Consider whether a labour agreement pathway fits. Where an industry agreement exists, as it does in aged care, it remains available and unaffected by Direction 119.

 

Frequently asked questions

Does Direction 119 mean my offshore application will be refused?

No. Direction 119 governs the order in which applications are considered, not whether they succeed. Eligibility criteria are unchanged. It affects how long you are likely to wait.

Is construction now a priority occupation?

Yes, but only where the applicant is in Australia at the time of application. Offshore construction applicants fall into the lowest priority category.

Does the same apply to healthcare and teaching?

Yes. All three occupation groups receive priority only for onshore applicants. There is no offshore tier for any of them.

Are accredited sponsors still prioritised?

No. Accredited sponsor status was removed as a standalone processing priority, as was location in a regional area.

Does Direction 119 affect applications already lodged?

Yes. It applies to applications made but not finally determined before it commenced, as well as to new applications.

Which visas does it cover?

Twelve visa classes and five nomination types, set out in Schedules A and B and reproduced in the tables above.

 

Where this leaves us

Direction 119 is not a bad instrument because it prioritises construction and healthcare. Prioritising them is right. It is a flawed instrument because it prioritises them in a way that cannot increase the number of people doing those jobs.

Australia is 112,365 homes behind its own housing target and heading for a shortfall of more than 300,000 construction workers. Aged care providers are negotiating with unions to access a labour agreement built to bring carers in from overseas. In both cases, the migration system now gives the fastest treatment to people who are already here and already working, and the slowest to the only people who could add to the total.

That is not a criticism of prioritisation. It is a criticism of prioritising the wrong side of the border.

AHWC Immigration Law advises employers on skilled sponsorship, labour agreements and workforce planning across construction, healthcare and aged care. If Direction 119 has changed the outlook for a role you are trying to fill, we are happy to give you a straight assessment of where you now sit. Call us on 03 9573 5200 or book a consultation with us here

This article is general information current as at 6 August 2026 and is not legal advice.

Direction 119 can be found here.