Australian Immigration Daily News

Skilled and Business Migration Update  - February 2019

The Skilled and Business Migration Program is pleased to launch its first bilingual site liveinmelbourne.vic.gov.au, now featuring comprehensive new content in Mandarin.

The Live in Melbourne website is the gateway for skilled, investor and business migrants to apply for Victorian visa nomination, and get information on living, working and doing business in Melbourne – one of the world’s most liveable cities.

China is Australia’s fastest growing and highest spending inbound tourism market, with 2.5 million Chinese tourists on tours per year.

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs David Coleman said making it as easy as possible to facilitate travel between China and Australia was a critical factor to the ongoing success of the Approved Destination Status (ADS).

“Streamlined and quicker visa processing times are a major drawcard of the ADS and have been replicated in other parts of the visa system,” Minister Coleman said.

The following information has just been received by RDA Orana, NSW:

For the month of January, Health and Mining lead the charge for jobs being advertised in the Orana region.

There were 54 Health and Social Welfare roles; including General nursing, mental health nursing, support workers and a number of positions for doctors and specialists. Most of these roles are for the centres of Dubbo and Mudgee, with a number of nursing positions being advertised in the smaller towns in the region.

This week marks ten years of since I entered the immigration profession and naturally many things have changed since 2009.  Introduction of immi account, abolition of subclass 457 visa, introduction of several new visa subclasses to cater for the ever-changing landscape we know as Australian Immigration.  Considering this anniversary, it got me wondering, if I had to pick just one major change in immigration landscape, what that would be, my answer, Department's approach to PIC 4020.

What is PIC 4020

In summary, Public interest criterion (PIC) 4020 is intended to significantly increase the level of integrity in visa applications by providing a strong disincentive to those considering giving, or causing to be given, a bogus document or information that is false or misleading in a material particular. It also requires applicants to satisfy the delegate as to their identity.

Mid-year update to the Immigration SA occupation lists

Immigration SA has conducted a mid-year review of its occupation lists - the State Nominated Occupation List (SNOL) and the Supplementary Skilled List (SSL), with some limited changes as a result (Note: the lists undergo greater change at each new program year). 

Changes will take effect on the afternoon of 11 February 2019. Four occupations have been changed to 489 provisional visa only for offshore applicants and this change is effective immediately.

Occupations added to the SNOL for the remainder of the 2018-19 program year