All Australian Visas

South Australia was the first of three states to release their State Migration Plan, albeit called an Interim List. Already there have been two updates which have been copied and pasted below about certain occupations that have already reached their planning levels. We are urging anyone who is considering applying for state sponsorship for South Australia, Victoria or the Australian Capital Territory to act now and lodge your application to avoid disappointment. We can assist with state sponsorship and we can confirm by an online consultation if you will need to rely on state sponsorship to meet the points test for the General Skilled Migration program. A tip for all you would be Australian Migrants, soon people who have state sponsorship will be prioritised for visa processing ahead of those who have not gained state sponsorship.

South Australian State Migration Plan

Planning levels exist for all occupations, Immigration SA would like to advise that the following occupations have reached their planning levels for the 2010-11 Program Year. These occupations have been removed from the South Australian State Sponsorship Interim Occupations List and are no longer available for State Sponsorship:

• 323112 - Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (Mechanical)
• 233611 - Mining Engineer (excluding Petroleum)
• 341112 - Electrician (Special Class)
• 233213- Quantity Surveyor

Note that on the 21st of October the following occupations were removed from South Australia’s Interim Occupations List:

• 233211 - Civil Engineer
• 261313 - Software Engineer
• 261312 - Developer Programmer
• 261111 - ICT Business Analyst
• 261112 - Systems Analyst
• 233513 - Production or Plant Engineer

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship introduced new priority processing arrangements for certain skilled migration visas on 1 July 2010.

These arrangements take account of the changes to the Skilled Occupation  List (SOL) that came into effect on 1 July 2010, as well as the scrapping  of the Migration Occupation in Demand List (MODL) and the Critical Skills  List (CSL).

These new priority processing arrangements apply to applications  already lodged with the Department and to future applications.

The new priority processing arrangements apply to the following visas:
 •    The Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS)
 •    The Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS)
 •    General Skilled Migration (GSM)

The following GSM visa subclasses are exempt from the priority processing  provisions specified in Direction 48:
 •    Skilled – Recognised Graduate Subclass 476
 •    Skilled – Graduate Subclass 485
 •    Skilled – Designated Area – Sponsored (Residence) Subclass 883
 •    Skilled – Regional Subclass 887

 Applications for these visa subclasses will be processed in the order in  which they are received.

 The following GSM applications are exempt from Direction 48:
 •    applications that have been remitted by the Migration Review Tribunal
 for reconsideration;
 •    applications where it is readily apparent that the criteria for grant
 of the visa would not be satisfied;
 •    applications by members of the family unit of a person who holds a
 temporary or provisional GSM visa (subsequent entrant applications).
 •    visa applications for a Skilled – Regional Sponsored Subclass 487
 visa where the applicant holds a Skilled – Independent Regional
 (Provisional) Subclass 495 visa, Skilled – Designated Area-sponsored
 (Provisional) Subclass 496 visa, Skilled – Regional Sponsored Subclass 487  visa or Skilled – Regional Sponsored Subclass 475 visa at the time they  apply.

The Skilled Migration visa processing priorities
Under the new  priority processing rules are the visas below starting with those with highest priority listed first:
    1. Applications from people who are employer sponsored under the ENS and
    the RSMS.
    2. Applications from people who are nominated by a state or territory
    government agency with a nominated occupation that is specified on that
    state or    territory’s state migration plan.
    3. Applications from people who have nominated an occupation on the new
    Skilled Occupation List (SOL) – Schedule 3 in effect from 1 July 2010.
 
We highly recommend you book a Professional Migration Assessment with one of our registered migration agent to make heads or tails out of all the new legislation introduced by the Department of Immigration before you lodge a visa application.

Danielle Ferris
Registered Migration Agent
Migration Agent Registration Number 0955608