During the first stages of COVID, immigration prioritised onshore applications, and the offshore applicants complained.
Which doesn't make sense at all. Even for the said "prioritisation of onshore applications during the first stages of COVID" - there were almost zero PR grants for non-employer sponsored applicants (unless you were in a medical field), and the processing volume for the sponsored applicants is not even comparable to the number of visas being prioritised now.
If the government wanted to tackle the skill shortages by bringing in offshore workers, the prioritisation is supposed to be limited to those who are applying for temporary working visas and working holiday makers. Pretty sure that the employers will be able to attract many skilled workers with TSS visas which grant unlimited working rights between 2~4 years, which was exactly what's been happening before this COVID bullsh!t.
Being a PR carries so much more value and implications other than the working right - such as the access to debt financing, CSP/HECS to higher degrees, and etc. The onshore applicants were basically putting their decisions aside for almost 3 years now, only to find that people who were in the overseas will be on the top of the queue. This really makes one to reasonably assume that the government is being an absolute bonkers in addressing societal/economic issues associated with skilled immigration - because more than often it is completely disregarded that a grant of PR means a lot more than just getting a working right, and (genuine) skilled immigrants make their decisions to settle in Australia juggling major life decisions on hand simultaneously - buying major assets (house/car), their career, their family, and so forth. If the applicant is reasonably competent in their profession who actually has the 'skills' in need for Australia (which I believe is going to be the case for most of the 186 applicants compared to other PR streams), their decision tree wouldn't look like "Oh I want to try working in Australia for a few years. I might apply for a PR, idk.".
Just logically thinking - 'PR' is basically a right to live/work indefinitely which means that one's intention to remain in Australia on a long-term basis for the foreseeable future is an integral aspect of being a permanent resident. Which one seems to be more evident with such intentions? People who've been paying taxes, working (and remaining in the tight job market) when the entire nation was on a lockdown, not going back to their home country; compared to those who basically stayed away from Australia in their home country, waiting until the whole visa fiasco has been lifted? This just doesn't make sense to me. Major dumb move to prioritise the offshore applicants.