Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Immigrating to Australia : Part III

Spouse, partner and de facto visas.. As we touched on above, if you are in the relationship with an Australian citizen, Australian resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen then there's every chance that you will qualify for a spouse, partner or de facto visa, depending on your particular circumstances. However, there is a strict visa application procedure for these specific visas due towards the increase in fraudulent applications over the years. The need to prove an ongoing relationship, joint finances and a clean criminal record are just some of the issues which is going to be addressed before the authorities will give the go-ahead for any visa to be granted.

Visa application process

The application procedure will vary depending upon the type of visa you are looking for with many of the simple tourist visas granted nearly immediately if for example you already hold a valid passport from countries such as Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan or the United Kingdom. This list may vary from time to time and with the likes from the EU expanding on an ongoing basis other passports are likely to be accepted within the future.

Average visa application timescales

While you can find no strict timescales concerning Australian visa applications you can expect the basic visas such as tourist and long stay company visas to take about one month to procedure. Other visas like as labour agreements, employer nominated applicants and regional sponsored migration schemes can get about 3.5 months to process and business skills visas can get upwards of six several weeks. These figures relate to so called "low risk countries" and you are able to usually add a 50% premium to the timescale for applicants living in so called "high risk countries".

Nevertheless, it must be noted that individuals with particular skills and perform knowledge which are needed instantly through the Austrian employment market may be quick tracked and receive their visas much quicker than the above timescales.

Applying for long term residency in Australia

It's feasible to apply for long term residency in Australia using the two main programs referred to as the "migration program" and the "humanitarian program".

Migration software

The migration software is basically a fast-track method to bring in a quantity of skilled migrants to the Australian workforce so that they can contribute to areas of the employment market where domestic availability might be low. Official statistics show that recently the federal government has been granting about 140,000 migration program visas a year even though this could rise considerably within the many years ahead.

Humanitarian program

Like most countries around the globe the Australian federal government has introduced a humanitarian software which allows refugees from troubled countries to seek long term residency in Australia. Official figures indicate that upwards of 10,000 humanitarian software visas are regularly granted every year to those eligible to stay within the nation.

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