General Skilled Migration Changes - 1 October 2006

A number of changes will be coming into effect on the 1st of October 2006. Most of these are minor technical changes, but some will make a significant impact on certain applicants for general skilled visas.

The main changes will be as follows:

• Applicants seeking a waiver of IELTS testing to establish Vocational English can only obtain this where they have not sat for the IELTS in the last 12 months.
• All primary applicants will now need to meet employability requirements (ie age, English, skills assessment, recent work experience). Previously, the primary applicant for sponsored applications would be the person with the relative in Australia, not necessarily the person seeking to meet requirements for employability.
• Primary applicants for general skilled migration will now need to be under 45 at date of lodgement to lodge a valid application
• All primary applicants will now provide evidence that a suitable skills assessment has been obtained at date of application to lodge a valid application. Previously, a completed skills assessment would suffice, whether positive or negative.
• Spouses who are permanent residents or citizens will no longer be able to contribute points to an application for skilled migration.
• New requirement added for time of decision that there be no evidence that the information provided to a skills assessing authority is false or misleading. This applies retrospectively to applications lodged prior to 1 October 2006
• It will no longer be possible for SIR-holders to make a valid application for a skills matching visa until they have held their SIR visas for at least 2 years
• Loophole allowing secondary SIR holders to apply for ENS or STNI visas will be closed.
• Applicants for Skilled Australian Sponsored visas can be nominated by employers for RSMS and Labour Agreement visas from the skills matching database