Aged parents of migrants will get access to 15,000 five-year temporary visas at $10,000 each under changes expected to be announced in next week’s budget.

Parents will need to hold private health insurance and have financial support through a bond from their children before the visa would be approved, SBS reports.

The Turnbull government promised the aged parent visas on the eve of the 2016 election following a Labor announcement to provide parents of Australian permanent residents and citizens with a three-year visitor visa if they held private health insurance, paid a $5,000 bond and were sponsored by their children.

The Turnbull government released a discussion paper in September last year, which set out the terms of the parent visas. At that time the assistant immigration minister, Alex Hawke, said the program would be in place by July 2017.

Currently, the non-contributory aged parent visa has a processing time of 30 years. In 2015-16, according to the discussion paper, 1,500 places were available with at a fee of $5,935 for the main applicant and $4000 for their spouse or de facto partner.

The contributory aged parent visa is processed within two years for a much higher fee of $47,295 for the main applicant and $44,845 for their spouse or de facto partner. There were 7,175 places in 2015-16 in this category.

At the time of the election announcement, the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said the government wanted to help families reunite without adding extra cost to the health system.

“The Coalition recognises that many Australians, including our growing south Asian and Chinese communities, face particular pressures through the separation of children from parents and grandchildren from grandparents,” Dutton said. “We want to help families reunite and spend time together, while ensuring that we do so in a way that does not burden Australia’s healthcare system.”

The migration changes come after both the Coalition and the Labor party announced crackdowns on the temporary worker visa system.

The Business Council of Australia’s chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, told Guardian Australia the recent “fear-mongering” on 457 visas did not match the evidence.

Malcolm Turnbull replaced the 457 temporary worker visa and cutting the number of eligible categories.

On Wednesday, Bill Shorten promised to triple the cost of temporary work visas to encourage employers to look locally as well as establish a “Smart visa” to ensure highly skilled migrants still consider Australia.

Westacott said data showed 457 visa holders represent about 0.8% of the total employees and just over 1% of all 457 visa sponsors engaged in serious non-compliance per year – a consistent figure over the past decade.



She said Australian businesses prefer to hire Australians wherever possible because it was easier, cheaper and workers have valuable local knowledge and skills.

Westacott warned while the recent debates provide an opportunity to ensure the visa scheme had integrity and public confidence, Australia’s skills base would be jeopardised by political posturing.

“But if this becomes driven by political posturing rather than evidence, we risk jeopardising the skills base we need to power our changing and globally oriented economy,” Westacott said. “Fear-mongering around foreign workers allegedly taking Australian jobs is simply not matched by the data, which shows the number of primary 457 visa holders was 81,300 in December, down 5.4% from a year earlier.

“If we’re serious about getting Australians into skilled jobs, we need to revitalise our neglected vocational education and training system so that it’s no longer treated like the poor cousin of the universities.”