Australian Immigration Daily News

The instrument amends Migration (LIN 19/047: Specification of Occupations— Subclass 187 Visa) Instrument 2019 (F2019L00276) and Migration (LIN 19/049: Specification of Occupations and Assessing Authorities—Subclass 186 Visa) Instrument 2019 (F2019L00275) in accordance with subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (the AIA). Subsection 33(3) of the AIA states that where an Act confers a power to make, grant or issue any instrument of a legislative or administrative character, the power shall be construed as including a power exercisable in the like manner and subject to the like conditions (if any) to repeal, rescind, revoke, amend, or vary any such instrument.

The instrument operates to amend LIN 19/047 and LIN 19/049 to change the definition of Health Workforce Certificate (HWC).

The purpose of the instrument is to update the definition of HWC in LIN 19/047 and LIN 19/049. As a result of changes to LIN 19/048 and LIN 19/219 to introduce the Health Workforce Exemption Certificate (HWEC), the definition of HWC was amended in LIN 19/047 and LIN 19/049. The change to the definition of HWC in LIN 19/047 and LIN 19/049 by this instrument, ensures that the definition is the same as the definition of HWC in LIN 19/048 and LIN 19/219.

Source: LIN20273.pdf and LIN20273-Explanatory-Statement.pdf

On Thursday, 10 December 2020, 2pm AEDT, the cardholder authentication security function will be activated for payments made with cards issued by Australian financial institutions only. 

When you pay via debit or credit card:

• You must enter the address of the cardholder into the payment screen in ImmiAccount.
• The cardholder’s bank may require that you complete a card authentication challenge. 

The payment transaction will fail if:

Trades Recognition Australia will be closed for the Christmas/New Year period.

The Trades Recognition Australia Enquiry Line will close at 4pm, Wednesday 23 December 2020 and will reopen at 10am, Monday 4 January 2021.

All enquiries during this time can be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Please note that enquiries will not be actioned before Monday 4 January 2021.

Engineers Australia will shut down during Christmas and New Year between 24th December 2020 and 10th January 2021.

Applications lodged between 7th December 2020 and 31st January 2021 are expected to be affected by the shutdown period and may experience a service delay. Fast Track may take longer than the advertised 20 working days to be claimed by an assessor but will be addressed first. 

Source: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/For-Migrants/Migration-Skills-Assessment/Migration-Announcements

The Australian Government is yet to allocate nomination quotas to states and territories for the 2020/21 program year.

The Northern Territory (NT) was provided a very small interim allocation, which has now been depleted. This means that the NT Government is currently unable to issue nominations under the General Skilled Migration (GSM) program.

In light of this, the NT GSM program is now suspended until further notice for all new applications. Applications for nomination under the Business Investment and Innovation Program remain open.