I'll correct you on that. You could have a work visa to be a nanny and roll that over every year totalling 7 (if you are lucky or know what you are doing). Doesn't mean you can live here indefinitely and sure as heck is no pathway to residency.
A work visa in most cases means fudge all. You can work, that's it.
So what is a pathway to residency?
I assumed that a rolling work visa over x amount of time was about the only way you could be in the country long enough to become one.
Basically having a skilled job offer coupled with either the right quantity of work experience or alternatively the right qualification would allow you to secure residence under what's called the Skilled Migrant Category.
A nanny is not skilled employment and whilst you may have a job and even get a work visa, you won't get residence.
A football player or the MD of the Phoenix is deemed to be skilled employment and most players would have the right quantity of work experience up their sleeve.
So whilst there are some work visas which are pathways to residence, in reality what 95 per cent of migrants do, is they get a job, they get a work visa (because an employer won't wait months for them to get residence) and residence unfolds in the background.
So for most a work visa for say two years is just a means to an end. It gets them working, keeps their employer happy, gets them earning coin whilst they await the residence process to take its course (which would take around 6-9 months)
If I was the owner of the Phoenix I would be kicking of residence for my foreign players from day one. The sooner they get it, the sooner they can become a citizen further down the line, the sooner we can bring in another import.
The sooner we will win the league.