Australian Immigration Daily News

Orana DAMA has been signed

Regional Development Australia (RDA) Orana chairman John Walkom & committee are pleased to welcome the Orana DAMA agreement between RDA Orana and the Federal Government.  Full press statement is available on Orana’s official website:

“This is a great win for the Orana region, increasing our semi-skilled and skilled migration to tackle our workforce shortage has been a key priority for RDA Orana over the past year, and this agreement puts the region in a promising position for future growth and development, Mr Walkom said.

Skills assessments come in all forms, shapes and sizes.  There are also a number of reasons we have skills assessment procedures in place.

Firstly, there are different skills assessing authorities for different occupations and each authority applies its own assessment criteria and that may be very different to criteria applied to a visa application.  This may create somewhat of a paradoxical situation whereby a person meets criteria relating to obtaining a positive skills assessment, yet their skills and experience may not meet relevant criteria for grant of the visa.

Here is a practical example, VETASSESS group A occupations in some instances require a relevant degree plus one-year work experience.  What if an applicant only has one year of relevant work experience and the purpose of the application is to meet Direct Entry requirements for a 186 visa?

Schedule III Criteria can be confusing for agents as well as practitioners given the number of discretionary factors involved in assessing whether an applicant meets criteria applicable to waiver provisions.

To put it simply, visas such as partner visas require an applicant to be a holder of a substantive visa or at the time of application if the application is made inside Australia.  There may be situations where an applicant does not hold a substantive visa.  For example, an applicant might be holding a Bridging Visa, or they may in fact be an unlawful non-citizen.

If either of the two elements apply, in addition to meeting ordinary visa applicant criteria, an applicant will need to meet the following:

Thank you to Migration Agents that have attended this week’s CPD on Subclass 491 Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) and Subclass 494 (Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visas.

It was a group effort to work through the legislation which is due to commence on 16^th November 2019 and 16^th November 2022 respectively.

Introduction of three new visas also means that subclass 489 Regional Provisional as well as subclass 187 Regional Sponsored Migration visas will be abolished once the legislation is implemented.

Immi account issues

Users of Immi account are advised that there are ongoing technical issues affecting the system. Certain visas applications are showing the following items as outstanding regardless of whether these were provided:

• Health Assessment
• Character Assessment
• Biometrics
• Additional payment requirement

Home Affairs advised that the above issues are being investigated by the technical team and will be fixed in due course.  In the meantime, if applicants or agents should disregard notice for outstanding documents if the documents or information has already been provided to immigration.