Australian Immigration Daily News

From November 16, 2019 we will see an introduction of two new regional provisional visas.   Both are intended to lead to permanent residency.

1. Skilled Work Regional 491 Visa

To be rolled out on 16 November, the Subclass 491 Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (Subclass 491), is a new and enhanced points-tested visa to assist regional Australia, for applicants nominated by a state or territory government agency or sponsored by an eligible family member residing in a designated regional area.  This visa will be valid for five years.

The process of sponsoring an employee on a TSS (482) visa should be viewed beyond transactional aspect of obtaining a TSS visa.  As an approved business sponsor, there are a number of Sponsorship Obligations which the sponsoring entity must meet as part of holding their sponsorship status.  In broad terms, the following Sponsorship Obligations apply to all standard and accredited business sponsors:

Notify the Department of Home Affairs when the following occurs:

• the visa holder’s employment ends or is expected to end
• there are changes to the work duties carried out by the sponsored visa holder
• the sponsor pays or has paid the return travel costs of a sponsored visa holder or any of their family members in accordance with the obligation to pay return travel costs
• the sponsor becomes insolvent within the meaning of subsections 5 (2) and (3) of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 and section 95A of the Corporations Act 2001
• the business ceases to exist as a legal entity

These are just some of the examples of sponsorship obligations.  The remainder of which can be found on Home Affairs website: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/employing-and-sponsoring-someone/existing-sponsors/standard-business-accredited-obligations

To manage the Australian border, the Department implements Australia’s universal visa system, under which all non-citizens require a valid visa to come to Australia. The Department also confers citizenship on eligible applicants. There are broadly two types of visas:

• higher volume, generally simpler, temporary entry visa products
• lower volume, longer-term migration visas requiring more complex assessment.

Business visitor visas allow for travel to Australia for short term tourism or business visits.

The principles governing the entry of visitors are that visitors to Australia must: 

Australian Computer Society in partnership with Legal Training Australia participated in an online webinar addressing common questions and scenarios associated with lodging skills assessments for migration purposes.

For those who were not able to join the session, the following summary can be found below:

-        As of July 2019 ACS, has been approved by the Minister of Education as the relevant assessing authority for ICT related occupations under the Migration Regulations. The skills team assess 24 different occupation codes on the list of eligible skilled occupations as legislated by the Department of Home Affairs.

The Victorian Government has announced launch of a new online lodgement system which go live on Monday 29 July 2019.  The new system will allow applicants to track progress of their application and have access to an online account across a number of portable devices.

Applicants who are in the process of filing a nomination with Victorian government need to be aware that the system will be offline from 4pm, Wednesday 24th July.  Existing drafts will not be transferred to the new platform.

For further details, visit