Update on October intake from the NSW State Government:

NSW Nominated Skilled Migration Program-October Update

The October intake has reached the cap of 1,000 and it is closed.

The working holiday visa has been a popular stepping stone to the 457 visa and subsequently a permanent residence visa. Many skilled working holiday visa holders with carefully prepared and planned migration pathways have successfully made the transition. Australia has been promising to expand the program and has already added Greece, Poland, Spain and Portugal to the list this year. Now, Israel joins the list.

On 22 October 2014, Australia and Israel announced that a new Work and Holiday Memorandum of Understanding was signed, establishing a reciprocal Work and Holiday visa (subclass 462) arrangement between the two countries.

This arrangement, when brought into effect, will allow up to 500 young adults from Israel and up to 500 young adults from Australia to enjoy a holiday in each other’s country, during which they may undertake short term work and study, according to DIBPs media release.

In the coming months, Australia and Israel will work closely together to implement the necessary legal and administrative processes to bring this visa into effect. The work and holiday arrangement will not commence until a start date has been agreed by both countries.

Once a commencement date has been announced, eligible young adults from Israel and Australia will be able to apply for this visa.

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October 2014 Edition

Welcome to the Victorian Government's Agent Alert for migration agents and representatives.

 WHAT EVERY SIGNIFICANT INVESTOR VISA APPLICANT SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AUSTRALIAN DIVORCE AND FAMILY LAW

The department of immigration has released its latest annual report in which it claims that it has achieved one of its key objectives (beside border protection) of granting the ‘best and brightest’ in the crop of migration applicants a quicker pathway to permanent residency so they can get on with their life and contribute to the Australian economy at the earliest.

In its latest annual report the department boasts that skilled migration application are being finalised between 6 and 12 months from the time of lodgement. The employer nominated scheme is the quickest pathway where the DIBP claims to have achieved almost 90% of its service standard of finalising 75% of the applications within 6 months.

In sharp contrast to this is the processing times for the family stream visas. The case in point is the Partner Temporary visa which has a similar service standard of 75% finalisations in 6 months. However, DIBP has achieved this only in about 1 in 5 cases with most being finalised in 12 months. RMAs have complained that DIBP has intentionally done this in order to spread out grants over the year and that some delays are due to applicants lodging applications without professional guidance due to the high deparmental application charges.

The sc457 Visa grants has seen a dramatic drop across the states. In 2013–14 the 457 primary visa grants for Western Australia (down 41.3 per cent to 8605) and Queensland (down 31 per cent to 7547) both fell. DIBP explained that this is in line with the slowing-down of the mining industry. The 457 primary visa grants for New South Wales (down 18.5 per cent to 19,693) and Victoria (down 14.8 per cent to 12,261) also fell.

The top three source countries for the 457 visa in 2013–14 were India with 23.3 per cent grants, followed by the UK (18.3 per cent) and the Republic of Ireland (7.2 per cent). These were the same top three source countries in 2012–13.