Australian Immigration Daily News

Following last week’s budget as well the National Migration Conference, we would like to provide our readers with an up to date summary of 190 State Nominated Visa Programmes.  We are hoping this summary will make it easier for you to advise your clients or if you are an applicant, consider your current position.

New South Wales

Invitation rounds will commence shortly for subclass 190 visa nomination. In line with Home Affairs direction, NSW will only invite applicants currently in selected health, ICT and engineering occupations, and who currently reside in NSW.

The instrument operates to approve the values statement for the subclasses of visas specified in the instrument. Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the instrument is approved as the values statement for all subclasses of visas specified in tables 1 and 2 of Schedule 1. Both Parts 1 and 2 of Schedule 2 combined are approved as the values statement for subclasses of permanent visas specified in table 2 of Schedule 1.

Source: LIN20166.pdf and LIN20166-explanatory-statement.pdf

14 OCT 2020: HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA HCA: Judgment Summary - AUS17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection & Anor [2020] HCA 37 - h201014927.pdf 

14 OCT 2020: HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA HCA: AUS17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection & Anor [2020] HCA 37 - Catchwords: Immigration - Refugees - Application for protection visa - Immigration Assessment Authority ("Authority") - h201014931.pdf 

14 OCT 2020: HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA HCA: Judgment Summary - The Queen v Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif [2020] HCA 36 - h201014928.pdf 

The Government is ensuring Australia remains an attractive destination for tourists, and temporary visa holders who often fill critical skills shortages, by offering refunds or waivers of Visa Application Charges (VAC). Tourists, working holiday makers, seasonal and pacific workers, prospective partners and temporary skilled workers whose travel has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic will be eligible.

Source: Supporting-Tourism-and-Ag-through-visa-application-charge-changes.pdf

A decision to travel to Australia to study necessarily involves a range of strategic and tactical decisions being taken by applicants for a visa to achieve a variety of outcomes. According to DHA, SkillSelect is a major change to how Australia manages its skilled migration program. SkillSelect helps to ensure the skilled migration program is based on the economic needs of Australia.

It supports the Australian Government in managing who can apply for skilled migration, when they can apply and in what numbers. There is however a catch, whilst we know that Skill Select exists and that the applicant needs to be invited in order to lodge a particular visa, we do not know our ranking amongst cohorts.

For example, if you are a Developer Programmer sitting on 100 points waiting for a subclass 189 invitation, you cannot predict when you will receive an invitation for your visa.  However, by visiting skill select dashboard database, it is possible to filter how many other Developer Programmers are in the queue.  For example, the Dashboard will tell you the lowest score this occupation had received an invitation and how many invitations have been for that particular occupation (you can choose filters such as date range, points range, points breakdown etc). Lets suppose that ten invitation were issued for this occupation last month the minimum score of 95 points.  This would be a good indication that the chance of receiving an invitation in the next round is high.