Industry Updates

'The Government is increasing the base visa application charge (VAC) for all visa subclasses, with the exception of the Visitor (subclass 600) visa, by 5.4 per cent from 1 July 2019. There will be no increase to second instalment VACs'

The Government will exempt Visa Application Charges for competitors and officials applying for a Temporary Activity (subclass 408) visa to participate in the 2019 INAS Global Games and International Cricket Council T20 World Cup in 2020

'From November 2019, two new regional visas will be implemented: the Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa, and the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa'

'We will be doing systems maintenance on some of our online systems between 1am AEDT and 4 am AEST on Sunday 7 April 2019'

The latest AAT Bulletin contains references to a migration review decision and a review decision of a MARA application refusal

The AAT recently released a new Privacy Policy with updated information

Number of invitations remained the same at 1,500; invitation thresholds raised to 75 points for visa subclass 189 and 85 points for visa subclass 489

Australia and Hong Kong signed the Australia-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement on 26 March 2019, with implications for Labour Market Testing once the agreement is translated into domestic law

The latest AAT Bulletin contains references to several citizenship & migration review decisions

'From 1 April 2019, application documents for the Job Ready Program: steps 1 and 2 - Provisional Skills Assessment (PSA) and Job Ready Employment (JRE), now need to be emailed within 14 days of applying online (previously 45 days)'