Australian Immigration Daily News

All visitors to Australia will need to have health insurance under a NSW Government proposal designed to spare taxpayers the hospital costs of Medicare-ineligible patients.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said each year NSW public hospitals write off about $30 million in unpaid medical expenses by visitors who fall ill without adequate insurance.

“I have written to the Commonwealth and other Health Ministers suggesting extending the health insurance requirement to all temporary visa classes,” Mr Hazzard said.

Many migration applicants consider applying for certification by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI), as successful completion of a suitable course can provide 5 points towards independent skilled migration.

NAATI now accepts TOEFL scores to meet their requirements for their programs.  The required scores can be found here: https://www.naati.com.au/certification/certification-prerequisites/english-proficiency/

TOEFL iBT scores are recognised for skills assessments for almost all professional bodies in Australia.  View a list of organisations accepting TOEFL scores in the Score Reports for Professional Bodies section of this page: www.ets.org/toefl/australia.

The purpose of the instrument is as follows:

(a) to provide an additional manner for lodging a paper application form for the Refugee and Humanitarian (Class XB) visas that was not specified in the previous instrument IMMI 17/051; 

(b) to remove the Onshore Protection Victoria and the Special Humanitarian Processing Centre in Melbourne as approved places for lodging a Protection (Class XA) visa application or a Refugee and Humanitarian (Class XB) visa application that was available in the previous instrument IMMI 17/051.

The purpose of the instrument is to specify an increased daily amount for the purpose of subsection 262(2) of the Act. The amount calculated is based on an average across all facilities based on the bandwidth aligned with the operational capacity of each facility with a daily rate of $489.11. 

The new rate has been approved by the Department of Home Affairs’ Chief Finance Officer to reflect the current cost of keeping and maintaining a person in immigration detention. The amount recoverable includes:

- The amount applicable to the person for the cost of keeping and maintaining the person while in immigration detention, as per paragraph 262(1)(c) of the Act.

Source: Determination-of-daily-maintenance-amounts-for-persons-in-detention.pdf (Instrument)

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The purpose of the instrument is to update the approved place and manner for Medical Treatment (Visitor) (Class UB) visa applications.  The postal address and address for courier delivery were amended to addresses in Queensland, and the fax number was removed, and replaced with an email address. 

The Department’s name has also been updated from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to the Department of Home Affairs to reflect the new name of the Department.

Source: Medical-Treatment-LIN18090----Instrument.pdf (Instrument)

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