Australian Immigration Daily News

Citizenship application fee changes take effect from 1 July 2021. Fees are increasing to more accurately reflect the cost of application processing.

Applicants will be charged the relevant fee based on when the Department receives their application. The new fees apply if the Department receives the application and payment on or after 1 July 2021.

Source: The new fee amounts - Citizenship-Fees-1-July-2021.pdf

Programmers and ICT security specialists will get prioritised visa processing to enter Australia and bypass travel restrictions under an expansion of the skilled migration program.

Immigration minister Alex Hawke on Tuesday announced that 22 new occupations would be added to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List, which was launched in September last year offering prioritised visas and exemptions from travel restrictions for the jobs listed.

The new occupations include electrical engineers, analyst programmers, software and application programmers, ICT security specialists and multimedia specialists.

Overview of the Bill

The Australian Government decided, as part of the 2021–22 Budget, to implement an updated cost recovery model for registration on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students(CRICOS) and associated regulation costs. These changes will be achieved through amendments in four separate bills:

- the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment Bill 2021 (Bill) will amend the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Act 1997 (Registration Charges Act)

- the ESOS Amendment (Cost Recovery and Other Measures) Bill 2021 will amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act)

- the Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Bill 2021 will amend the Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Act 2012

- the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Charges) Amendment Bill 2021 will amend the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Charges) Act 2021. 

The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Registration Charges Act to update the registration charges to recover the costs for certain regulatory activities under the ESOS Act. The Bill establishes new registration charges that are consistent with the Australian Government Charging Framework(available from www.finance.gov.au).

The Bill will enable ESOS agencies to implement their own cost recovery arrangements to support the regulation of education providers registered under the ESOS Act. The Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA), the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and the Secretary of the department are the ESOS agencies for providers registered under the ESOS Act.

The Bill sets out the annual charges payable by providers who are registered on CRICOS, as well as the charges related to ESOS Agency functions for applications by schools for initial registration and renewal of registration on CRICOS.

Source: Education-Services-for-Overseas-Students-Bill-2021.pdf and Education-Services-for-Overseas-Students-Bill-2021-explanatory-memorandum.pdf

Yesterday at the request of the Sri Lankan family formerly resident in Christmas Island, I exercised my power under section 195A of the Migration Act, granting members of the family 3 month Bridging Visas, providing work and study rights.

Under section 195A a Minister can intervene to grant a person a visa if it is in the public interest to do so. This decision allows three members of the family to reside in the Perth community on bridging visas while the youngest child’s medical care, and the family’s legal matters, are ongoing. The fourth family member’s visa status is unchanged.

The family will continue to have access to health care, support services, housing and schooling in the Perth community.

The Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL) has been expanded to include civil, structural, electrical, geotechnical, transport, mining and petroleum engineering occupations. This is in addition to the already-listed occupations of mechanical and software engineer.

Engineers Australia Chief Executive Officer, Dr Bronwyn Evans AM said: “Engineers Australia welcomes the addition of seven engineering occupations to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List.

“This is an excellent outcome which is set to benefit many companies across a range of engineering-intensive sectors in Australia."

 Source: Skilled-Migration-Changes-Benefit-Engineering-Profession.pdf