The system would also make sure temporary sponsorship is reserved for higher-wage jobs, as the report claims Australia is sponsoring too many low-skilled workers.
But others have raised concerns lower-skilled migrants may miss out, as the Grattan Institute report recommends a new type of worker visa should be granted to higher-paying roles.
Brendan Coates is the lead author of the new Grattan Institute report - Fixing temporary skilled migration: A better deal for Australia.
"So in particular, there were changes made in 2017 by the Turnbull government that made temporary sponsorship more restrictive, reduced the number of occupations that were on the list and for occupations that remained on that list some of them become only eligible for a single two-year non-renewable visa or were only in regional areas. There was also a shift to change the rules to make it harder for some TSS visa holders to become eligible for permanent residency down the track," he says.
Currently, the federal government decides which occupations are eligible for temporary visa workers through a list of professions that it deems are “in shortage”.
But as another Grattan report researcher, Henry Sherrell, suggests, defining needed skills by occupation is inflexible in a rapidly changing labour market.
"Tasks within an occupation can differ substantially and if you think about an accountant, you might be an accountant at a global firm doing fraud accounting work or you may be an accountant who is doing sort of regular audits of financial statements. People pay different salaries based on those different tasks, even if they are in the same occupation, and if we target occupations we don't pick that up."
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