Surani

What changes have taken place so far in 2009

One would wonder why there can be many changes to Australian migration procedures, which has come to the attention of most people, particularly in the last few months. Recapping on the changes that have taken place so far; on January 1, Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) announced a new list of occupations, which is known as the Critical Skills List (CSL). This is in addition to the Skills Occupation List (SOL) and Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL). The purpose of the introduction of the CSL was to place weight on the skills that are in acute shortage in Australia and give these applications further priority in processing.

Vital changes affecting application processing time

On March 19, the DIAC announced its new procedures of visa applications processing for skilled migration. According to the change, the state/territory nominated visas received the highest level of priority, while CSL occupation has the second level of priority. If the applicant has the occupation in the MODL, this will be pushed down to the third level, while family sponsored and independent applications receive the least level of priority. It has been more than 5 months since the first change and two months since the prioritising of applications came into the picture.

We clearly see the difference in processing time now. From March up to now, there was another change that took place in the CSL category, where trades (technical) occupations were taken off the list. This is due to the current economic trend where less demand is created for jobs at technical level. However, the demand for Accountants (Degree, ICASL, CIMA qualified), Engineers (Degree level), and Computer professionals (a qualification is not compulsory) is acute. There is a noticeable difference in processing times from the previous era, if you belong to either State nominated or CSL category visas.

New planning levels

The DIAC has already announced its planning levels for 2009~2010. Although there is a cut back of 20% in skilled migration category, this is still higher than the numbers prior to 2004. The intake of skilled migrants for the coming planning year will settle at 108000 places, whilst there is an increase in the places up to 63000 in the family stream migration (parent, partner and child).

July 1 change

A noteworthy change in the migration law from July 1 2009 will be the increase in IELTS test requirement for technical level occupations. It is mandatory that potential migrants demonstrate their English level in the application process.

For this purpose, IELTS testing is the most popular. So far, technical level occupations were required to demonstrate only 5 in each band. However, this requirement will increase up to 6 from July. In my experience, this can be a difficult score to achieve for people working at technical level. How can we find a remedy to this?

To qualify under the current law, one must lodge the visa application prior to July 1, and the DIAC must receive the application at the latest on June 30. If the skills assessment required for lodging the visa application can be obtained, and the IELTS test can be completed, there is a high possibility the visa application could reach DIAC before the deadline.

This is indeed a mind boggling task. I encourage you to seek professional advice as other requirements such as point test must be satisfied. Merely rushing without direction can result in lodging invalid visa applications.

Aftermath of July 1

What can one do to qualify for migration after the legal change? It must be mentioned that only technical level IELTS requirement was at lower level. For professionals and all other occupations the requirement was at 6 in each band.

Currently, there is a visa category that one would qualify with a lower level of English; that is 5.5 in overall band, which is known as Concessional Competent English. To qualify for this, either you must be sponsored by a blood relative living in a designated area or nominated by a state/ territory government.

Applicants applying under this category are required to pay an additional fee to enhance their English by attending classes after migrating. Making applications under Concessional Competent English can be an option for technical level occupations with a lower level of IELTS.

However, you must be aware of the fact that Concessional Competent English requirement will be increased to 6 overall in IELTS in the new planning year. As the changes can be confusing and complicated, you may be required to consult a registered migration consultant with the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA www.themara.com.au)

The writer is a Migration Consultant BA (Kyorin, Tokyo, Japan), Post Graduate Edu Monash University Melbourne