Legislative Updates

'The amendments will reduce the processing burden for travellers at international ports using a SmartGate ... by removing the requirement to present a physical passport if details of their passport are already held electronically'. 

Abridged version of a Lexis Nexis' article that explains the current regulatory framework and then discusses what the proposed changes are and how they would apply to practitioners under 6 different scenarios.

Visa subclass 417 (Working Holiday) - age limit raised to 35 for some countries on 1 November 2018.

'The Regulations target retirees who,... on 8 May 2018, held a Subclass 405 (Investor Retirement)... or... Subclass 410 (Retirement)... visa, or who did not hold a substantive visa on that date and the last substantive visa held was one of those visas'.

A new instrument that adds the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement to the list of exemptions for Labour Market Testing.

'If a Minister purports to... perform a function... that is conferred or imposed on another Minister by an Act, the... performance of that function... is not invalid merely because the... function... is conferred or imposed on the other Minister'.

'If an officer knows or reasonably suspects that a transitory person is a legacy minor, the officer must bring the person to Australia for the temporary purpose...'

The amendments expand the character test from a sentence-based approach to a test that also involves convictions, whether or not they are followed by sentences.

New instrument enables some visa holders regarded as refugees under the Social Security Act to have 'immediate access to social security payments without having to meet prior residence requirements'.

A new instrument about the wait period for holders of visa subclasses 116 and 836.