Australian Immigration Daily News

The Department is supporting Australia’s response to the escalating crisis in Ukraine and is progressing outstanding visa applications from Ukrainian nationals as a priority, across all visa categories. The Department has finalised hundreds of on-hand applications over recent days.

Anyone wishing to make a new application for a visa to travel to Australia should consider options relevant to their circumstances. See Explore visa options.

Close family members can apply on behalf of their family members in Ukraine. The Department provides advice on who can help with a visa application at Who can help you with your application?.

The Department of Home Affairs has made changes to the COVID-19 and the border website, which has a new URL and is now located at www.homeaffairs.gov.au/COVID19

While redirect links are in place to redirect users from the previous URL to the homepage of the updated website, to mitigate the risk of any broken links as a result of these changes, please update links on your website, email, app or other communication materials to: www.homeaffairs.gov.au/COVID19.

The Department of Home Affairs recommends directing all links to the restructured website’s homepage only.

The purpose of the instrument is to expand the kind of work an applicant can be doing, or have an offer to do, to be eligible for grant of a Subclass 408 visa by removing the limitation to work in key sectors. This will support businesses across the Australian economy as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The instrument removes the specified class of persons for visa holders in Australia who are unable to depart as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Removing this class reflects that international borders are now open and difficulties faced by individuals seeking to leave Australia at the beginning of, and during, the pandemic no longer exist.

Source: LIN22046.pdf and LIN-22046-Explanatory-Statement.pdf

The purpose of the instrument is to specify the approved form, place and manner (the arrangements) for making an application for a Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional) (Class PR) visa (Class PR visa), which commences on 5 March 2021 (see section 2 of, and Schedule 3 to, the Migration Legislation Amendment (Hong Kong) Regulations 2021 and the Migration Amendment (New Skilled Regional Visas) Regulations 2019).

The Class PR visa has one subclass—Subclass 191 (subclass 191 visa).

Source: LIN22035.pdf and LIN22035-Explanatory-Statement.pdf

The Amendment Regulations insert two new defined terms to the definition of COVID-19 affected visa in regulation 1.03 of the Regulations, being offshore COVID-19 affected visa and onshore COVID-19 affected visa.

The establishment of the new term onshore COVID-19 affected visa establishes a cohort that may be eligible, in certain circumstances, for a ‘nil’ visa application charge (VAC) concession.

Source: LIN22042.pdf and LIN22042-Explanatory-Statement.pdf