Temporary Sponsored Parent visa

The new temporary sponsored parent visa will be introduced in November 2017, with 15,000 visas to be made available annually. This visa will allow the temporary stay of sponsored parents in Australia for periods of up to three or five years. The visa may be renewed from outside Australia to

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Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Travel Card (BTC) for Australian citizens

The APEC is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to facilitate economic growth and prosperity in the region. The BTC is a travel document issued to business travellers who are citizens of APEC participating economies and provides them with reciprocal entry arrangements in nearly all APEC economies

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Budget 2017-18 Overview & the Immigration program

The 2017-18 Budget handed down tonight included the following elements impacting the immigration program.

Visa Application Charges (VAC) increase: Indexation of visa application charges will occur from 1 July 2017. All current VACs will be indexed annually in line with the forecast Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Indexation applies only to the 1st instalment component of the VAC,

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General Skilled Migration (GSM) & Skilled Occupation Lists -Australia

The Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) will apply to following visa subclasses which are lodged as from 19 April 2017.  Any applications lodged already in these visa categories will not be affected.

Skilled Independent (subclass 189),
Skilled Regional family sponsored (subclass 489)
Temporary Graduate – Graduate work stream (subclass 485) visas

The

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VETASSESS and the changes

What does this change mean for VETASSESS applicants?

If your nominated occupation isn’t affected by this reform, then you do not need to do anything. VETASSESS is continuing to process your Skills Assessment application as usual.

If your pending Skill Assessment application is significantly affected by this reform including removal from the list of eligible

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Labour Agreements Update

The recent announcements regarding changes to Australia’s skilled visa programmes which came into effect from 19 April 2017 currently have no impact on the labour agreement programme.

At this time:

existing labour agreements remain in effect;
existing visa holders are not impacted unless they apply for another visa impacted by the changes outside of the labour agreement programme;
new

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Timeline of future 457 changes

from 19 April 2017 – 216 occupations removed and 59 others restricted, 24 occupations restricted to regional Australia, Occupational lists renamed, validity period for occupations on STSOL 2 years.

from 01 July 2017 – English salary exemption $96,400 to be removed, training benchmarks to be changed, mandatory penal clearance certificates.

before 31 December

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Temporary Skill Shortage Visa (TSS visa)

The 457 visa will be abolished from March 2018. The 457 will be replaced by the Temporary Skills Shortages (TSS) visa from this date.

The TSS visa will have higher requirements than the current 457 visa – in particular:

Minimum of 2 years work experience
Labour Market Testing for most applicants
Higher English for

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Subclass 457 visa eligible occupations

Occupations listed in both Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 in the following instrument are eligible for subclass 457 visas from 19 April 2017.

See: 2017/040 – Specification of occupations, a person or body, a country or countries Amendment Instrument. A combined list of eligible skilled occupations which includes the occupations on both schedules

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