We flagged in our last post that Burke's press club claim about agriculture, fisheries and resources being added to priority visa processing couldn't be confirmed against the version of Ministerial Direction 119 we'd sighted at the time, and that resources in particular had been named in the speech but dropped when he was pressed on it in the Q&A. That's now resolved, and the answer is more significant than a simple confirmation.

MD119 has been revoked, not amended

Direction 119, signed 24 July 2026, has been revoked. In its place are two new directions, Direction 121 and Direction 122, both signed 18 September, the day after the press club speech, and both in effect from 19 September. Direction 121 now governs subclass 482 (Skills in Demand) visa applications on their own. Direction 122 covers the other nine permanent and provisional skilled subclasses that used to sit alongside 482 under MD119, employer nomination (186), regional employer nomination (187), skilled independent (189), skilled nominated (190), permanent residence skilled regional (191), skilled regional sponsored provisional (489), skilled work regional provisional (491), skilled employer sponsored regional provisional (494), skilled residence (887), and business skills (888).

Agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and resources are genuinely new

Both directions confirm agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and resources sector occupations as priority sectors, sitting alongside construction, healthcare and teaching, which were already prioritised under the old direction. So the addition Burke described in the speech is real, it just hadn't happened yet at the time he described it, and took effect two days later.

The priority structure itself has changed

This is the part that didn't get any attention in coverage of the speech. Under MD119, law enforcement and defence occupations sat in their own top tier, split by whether the applicant was onshore or offshore. Construction, healthcare and teaching sat in a separate, lower tier. Under both new directions, all of it, construction, healthcare, teaching, agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, resources, law enforcement and defence, is merged into a single top priority tier, with no onshore or offshore split at that level. That's a genuine elevation for the newly added sectors and a structural simplification for everyone else, not just an extra few items tacked onto an existing list.

A new priority tier for the Specialist Skills stream

Direction 121 introduces a dedicated second priority tier for Skills in Demand (subclass 482) applications in the Specialist Skills stream. Nothing equivalent existed under MD119. If you've got clients or employers using that stream, this is worth knowing about directly.

A new exceptions provision

Both directions now let a delegate depart from the standard priority order where compelling circumstances apply, affecting community safety or the continuity of essential religious, cultural or community services in Australia. Direction 121 adds a third ground specific to it, Australia's international relations. MD119 had no equivalent provision at all.

Nominations have dropped out of scope

This is the change we'd flag as most practically important. MD119 covered both nomination applications and visa applications. Both new directions cover visa applications only. The nomination stage, the step that has to be approved before an employer sponsored visa application can even be considered for most of these subclasses, is no longer covered by a priority processing direction under either instrument. If a client's nomination was previously benefiting from MD119's priority processing, that basis no longer applies.

Applications already on hand are affected

Both directions apply to applications made before 19 September that hadn't been finally decided by that date, meaning applications already in the queue are re-ordered under the new priorities rather than continuing under whatever arrangement applied when they were lodged. This isn't limited to new applications going forward. The big changes that were announced at the press club address but are yet to be formalised such as 500 and 485 applications adding family memebers, are unaffected by this change and will continue as per before.

What this means in practice

If you've got a pending nomination or visa application in any of the subclasses covered by these directions, it's worth checking which tier it now falls into rather than assuming the position it held under MD119 still applies. Given how quickly this moved, less than 48 hours between the speech and these directions taking effect, we'd treat any migration policy announcement as provisional until the actual instrument is published, which is exactly what happened here.