From 1 July, 2015 Significant Investor Visa (SIV) applicants are required to invest 40% of their complying investment into Venture Capital (VC) and small public company shares, and the balance of the $5M into Australian managed funds or listed investment companies.  

There has been much media attention, particularly in relation to a slowdown in applications versus the SIV1 investment regime. Whilst there have been 149 expressions of interest to date, only 6 visas have been granted under the new SIV 2 framework.

We are interested in gaining your feedback on how the SIV program is going, particularly in relation to any insights from potential applicants, and any challenges or opportunities you are experiencing.

An agreement has been signed between Australia and Hungary to enable the countries' youth to experience each other's culture through the Work and Holiday (sc 462) program.

Under the arrangement, 200 people who are at least 18 but not yet 31 years of age will be able to travel to each other’s country for one year and undertake short-term work and study under the Work and Holiday subclass 462 visa.

Similar agreements already exist with Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and Uruguay. At present, only passports holder from the USA can apply online.

At the signing ceremony earlier this week, the immigration minister, Mr Peter Dutton said that Australia will be working closely with our Hungarian counterparts to establish a mutually agreed start date for this arrangement as soon as possible. Similar agreements signed with Vietnam, Greece, Israel, and Papua New Guinea have stalled and not yet commenced.

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The AAT has asked Migration Alliance to distribute the following message:

AAT registry services have moved to Level 6 at 83 Clarence Street, Sydney

Registry services at our 83 Clarence Street office are now available from Level 6. 

What is the story if you submit an application for merits review to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and there is some “irregularity” relating to payment of the prescribed fee? 

For example, what is the situation if the application is made on a “paper form” and the part of the form calling for the signature of the credit card holder to authorize payment of the fee is not actually signed? 

What happens if your client is granted a reduction of the application fee on grounds of financial hardship but fails to pay the fee within the time specified by the Tribunal? 

DIBP has warned that sc457 applications including sponsorship, nomination and the visa application must be decision-ready or risk refusal.

Responding to Migration Alliance enquiries, a spokesperson for the Department of Immigration has stated that because the lodgement of incomplete applications has been an ongoing issue for the 457 processing network, the department has ‘adopted the approach of making decisions on incomplete applications at time of initial assessment.’

This means an application could be refused the very next working day, after lodgement.

Migration Alliance enquired with the DIBP upon seeing a report that an applicant who lodged their visa late on Friday was refused the Sponsorship application on midday Monday as the required evidence was not uploaded with the application.

The latest response from the DIBP to the Migration Alliance is contrary to a report which said that “The MIA [who also enquired on the matter]…was advised that [the sponsorship application refusal] may have occurred as new staff were working on SBS applications.”