Cissy Fu (MARN: 0956463, MIA: 3825, NAATI No.: 62576, JP 195695)

Cissy is an accredited professional translator, and has a master degree of Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management at the University of Sydney, a graduate diploma of translation and interpreting from the University of Western Sydney, a graduate certificate of Australian Migration Law and Practice at the Australian National University and a bachelor degree of arts in English literature in China. She has the first – hand experience of studying in Australia as an overseas student and migration to Australia, which helps her understand better of her clients.

Yvonne Lei （NAATI No.: 57862）

Yvonne has a Bachelor of Arts and is a NAATI accredited professional translator. Yvonne has been working in the migration filed for more than five years, assisting in processing all types of visa applications covering business skills migration, visitor visa, temporary business long-stay, student visa, ENS, RSMS and etc. Yvonne is always dedicated to paving a smoother way for clients’ to get their visas successfully.

2011 Migration Seminars:

Australian migration policies have been changed dramatically. Many overseas students have experienced the tightening of migration policies. The future of migration has been paid close and extensive attention by many interested parties.

With the invitation of Chinese Student Association (CSA-UNSW), Financial Management Association of Australia (FMAA-USYD) and Federation of Chinese Community of Canberra Inc (FCCCI), AUSA Migration will hold three seminars in October focusing on general skilled migration. Jennifer Kwok, the managing director and professional migration agent of AUSA Migration will provide an informative presentation to explain the updated migration policies and their future trend.

Specialized Topics:

     -Skilled Migration Policy Changes from 2007 to 2011;

     -New Criteria for GSM and New Point Test System;

     -kills Assessments;

     -Pathway from 485 or PR;

     -Employer Sponsored Visas and Spouse Sponsored Visas;

     -5 Points from NAATI Accreditation;

The First Seminar:

Time: 12:00pm-2:00pm, 12^th October 2011 (Wednesday)

Venue: Merewether Lecture Room 5 (Room 277), Level2, Merewether Build,

University of Sydney (Corner City Rd and Butlin Ave)

The Second Seminar:

Time:  3:30pm-6:30pm, 14^th October 2011 (Friday)

Venue: Civil Engineering Building 109, The University of New South Wales

The Third Seminar:

Time: 10:00am-12:00pm, 29^th October 2011 (Saturday)

Venue: Lake Ginninderra College, Canberra

Since year 2004, AUSA Migration has held seminars for students at universities and for people within different communities. During Seminars, we not only introduce the latest policy and changes to Migration Law, but also answer many students’ specific questions concerning their visa and migration issues. A large number of students attend the seminars each year. The feedback forms we receive indicate that the seminars have achieved great success and provide useful information to students.

The interactive atmosphere and the information we collect from the seminars is most valuable and the greatest encouragement for our work. Providing a quality service to students and clients is what we always aim for and we are continuingly improving our service to meet the students and clients needs.

Other new charges will be progressively introduced over the next 18 months such as:

• Extra application service fee will be charged for any dependent of a primary visa applicant who is included in the application;
• New charges for longer duration visas;
• Additional charges for paper applications where an online option is available;
• Additional charges for optional services, such as visa labels, which are not required by Australia.

Many visa subclasses will not be affected by new visa application charges:

• The vast majority of visitors will not be affected including those arriving on an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) and visitors from the European Economic Community;
• Refugee and humanitarian visa applicants;
• Citizenship applicants ;
• Postgraduate research students;
• Australian sponsoring businesses.

(Source from DIAC website http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/vpt-fact-sheet.pdf)

Topic

Brief

• The CSL list and MODL are revoked;

• The current Skilled Occupation List (SOL) will be replaced;
• All offshore GSM applications lodged before 1 September 2007 will have their applications withdrawn and the visa application charge (VAC) refunded;

• Amendments to the Migration Act to cap and cease by selection factors such as subclass or occupation;

• The points test used to assess GSM applicants will be reviewed;
• new priority processing arrangements for certain skilled migration visas;
• State and territory specific migration plans will be developed;

(Skill Select) Two Stages:Potential applicants first register their claims for skilled migration through an online Express of Interest (EOI) .After selection, eligible applicants will be invited to submit a visa application later. Commencement date of Skill Select is from 1^stof July 2012. 22 Sep 2011 Student visa Program

• All applicants for higher education degree courses will be processed as Assessment Level 1;
• Applies to those students who obtain their first student visa following the proposed introduction of the Genuine Temporary Entrant (GTE) which is proposed to commence in late 2011;
• All Australian bachelor degree with at least two years study in Australia be given two years post-study work rights in Australia; Masters by research graduated be given three years post-study work right. PHD be given four years post-study work right;
• The student work entitlements be 40 hours per fortnight instead of 20 hours per week;
• More details in DIAC website: www.immi.gov.au/news

Copy right at AUSA Migration & Education Service Pty Ltd

At moment there are about 42631 applications in priority group 5 including 27346 onshore applications and 15284 offshore applications.

Processing priority group 5 onshore applications will begin with the remaining applications lodged before September 2007; the oldest case was lodged on 28 July 2005. There are around 756 cases in this group.

Processing priority group 5 offshore applications will begin with the visa applications in subclasses 495 and 496 which were lodged before September 2007; the oldest case was lodged on 10 July 2006. There are around 594 applications in this group.

The number of higher priority applications received, and other factors including any change in the size of the migration program or variation of the processing direction will have an impact on the number of the priority group 5 applications which will be processed in this program year.

(Read more details, please visit the DIAC website

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/gsm-priority5-processing.htm)

Employers may now apply for accredited status which will qualify them for priority processing for all subclass 457 nominations and visa applications.

How to apply for sponsorship accreditation

To qualify for Accredited Status, sponsors will have to demonstrate several characteristics in addition to the standard sponsorship requirements at the time of application.

Accredited status can be applied for by either submitting a new sponsorship application or applying for a variation of a current sponsorship agreement.

Sponsors can apply for accredited status by the same methods as apply to become a standard business sponsor, that is by using eVisa or paper form 1196s.

If the employer does not meet the characteristics for accredited status, the application for standard business sponsorship will still proceed and be assessed in the usual way.

If a sponsor does not maintain these characteristics, Accredited Status can be revoked which means priority processing will be retracted. The validity length of the sponsorship cannot be changed, and will remain at six years.

Characteristics that must be met

Sponsors who want to be approved for Accredited Status must meet all of the following characteristics:

• be a government agency, a publicly-listed company, or a private company, with a minimum of $4 million turnover per year for the last three years
• have been an active subclass 457 visa sponsor for the past three years (with a break of no more than six months, not due to any sanction)
• have no adverse information known about them based on Department  of Immigration and Citizenship and Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relation monitoring, including formal warnings and sanctions
• have had at least 30 primary subclass 457 visa holders granted in the previous 12 months
• have lodged a high level of decision-ready applications over the previous two years
• have a non-approval rate of less than three per cent for the previous three years
• have Australian workers comprising at least 75 per cent of their workforce in Australia and a commitment to maintain this level.

(Source from DIAC at http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/sbs/sponsorship-accreditation.htm released on 7th Nov 2011)

The Department of Immigration & Citizenship has decided that the Decision Ready Checklist for 485 visa is only valid for new applications. The applicants should authorize the professional and registered migration agent to make the DRC application for them. All the documents should be uploaded to the immigration website on the day of lodgement. The DRC is only valid for E-visa applications. For the 485 visa applications which have already been lodged, DRC cannot be made.

• TOEFL Paper-Based test;
• TOEFL Internet-Based test (also known as TOEFL iBT);
• Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) test (also known as Certificate in Advanced English);
• Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic); and
• the Occupational English Test.

The alternative English language tests will only apply to the student visa applications at this stage and not to other visa subclasses. The alternative test is available for student visa applications:

• lodged but not decided by the 5 November 2011;
• lodged on or after 5 November 2011;

The TOEFL Internet-Based Test, the Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) test, Pearson Test of English Academic test and the Occupational English Test may be taken by an applicant in any foreign country or countries.

This is specified in Legislative Instrument IMMI 11/051 [F2011L02058].

Schedule 2 of the Legislative Instrument specifies the test scores which must be achieved by each applicant.

(Source from MIA Notice Issue 2011.52 – 20 October)