Australian Immigration Daily News

An additional Graduate Skilled Migration List will be introduced to attract the best global talent with the advanced qualifications, skills and experience and help grow Western Australia's share of the international education market.

The McGowan Government will give high achieving education graduates - PhD, Masters, Honours and other higher degree graduates - a pathway to skilled migration.

It is expected the changes will attract an increased number of high-quality international students to the State and help grow our share of the international education market.

How can you tell whether the Tribunal has committed a jurisdictional error (and therefore know whether to recommend to your client that she/he pursue an application for judicial review in the Federal Circuit Court after the Tribunal has made a decision to affirm the refusal of a visa application)?

Perhaps this may seem to be a confounding, existential or metaphysical question, one that can cause you to run screaming down the hallways of your office, tear your hair out, have nightmares, set yourself on fire, jump off the Harbour Bridge, or resort to other “self-help” remedies to avoid having to think about the issue!

Well, if you feel this way, you can take comfort in knowing that you are not alone, and that the question of what is and what is not jurisdictional error is something that is capable of confounding the brightest legal minds in Australia.

Do you agree that Public Interest Criterion 4020, as interpreted by the Full Court in the famous Trivedi case, can sometimes operate to have (brutally) harsh results?

If you have any doubt, consider the case of Ashiq v Minister for Immigration& Anor (2018) FCCA 544 (7 March 2018), most recently updated on Austlii 31 July 2018.

The circumstances in this case were that the applicant, a citizen of Pakistan, originally applied for a student visa in February 2012. 

Implementation of Skilling Australians Fund Levy

Department of Home Affairs has finally implemented a long awaited SAF Levy on 12 August 2018. The following visa subclasses are impacted:

• Subclass 482 TSS
• Subclass 186 ENS
• Subclass 187 RSMS

The levy amount is determined by annual turnover generated by the sponsor. For example, a business with an annual turnover of less than $10M can expect to pay a one-off levy amount of $3000 per ENS or RSMS nomination. In the case of subclass 482 nominations, relevant levy amount for a business with the same turnover is $1200 per year.

 Would you be willing to believe that there are occasions when an application for judicial review of a decision of the Tribunal is sometimes relatively easy?

And that sometimes the Tribunal makes an obvious mistake – one that is so obvious that you have to wonder why the case ever went to final hearing before a judge of the Federal Circuit Court? And why the Minister and his legal representatives did not simply concede that a jurisdictional error had been made, and that the case should be remitted to the Tribunal for “re-determination in accordance with law”?

Just such a case was recently reported on Austlii, Thapa v Minister for Immigration & Anor, (2018) FCCA 2182 (10 August 2018).