176 Visa - Do we really have to live there?

[DDTV]

Hey,

My fiance and I were wondering whether anyone has gone out on this visa and what the exact conditions are that come with it?? We have just had a consultation with Thinking Australia and they said that if we went out on this visa but decided to move no one would know/care as they never check up- is this true??
I'm currently a secondary school teacher and was hoping to apply for a skilled independent visa (conditional that i get extra 5 points from the IELTS), yet have now been told that my partner and i would stand a better chance applying for the state sponsored. Does this mean that i HAVE to teach when i'm out there (i was hoping to take a little break and do something else for a while) and will i be told to go to a certain town?? In a sense how limiting is this visa??
I Hope this ramble makes some sense!!

Ali

p.p.s What have other teachers gone out on?? I would like to resume teaching at some point!!

[cartertucker]

Hiya,

I asked the same thing to my agent, can we go on a 176 to another state (one we dont want to move to) then once there, move to the state we do want & she advised that is was not a good idea...That you could be in breach of your visa conditions

I'll be interested in what others have to say, I know of someone that is planning on doing it

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Ali

Welcome to Poms in Oz.

Currently visa processing is looking like this:

GENERAL SKILLED MIGRATION ADELAIDE
PROCESSING INFORMATION FOR THE WEEK COMMENCING:
23 March 2009

This is an automated e-mail response which provides weekly updated
information on skilled migration applications being processed by the
Adelaide Skilled Processing Centre (ASPC). Please do not reply to this
email address. This mailbox is not monitored. Our contact details are
listed below.

ASPC PROCESSING INFORMATION

On 17 December 2008 the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced
changes to the way General Skilled Migration applications will be
processed. Details can be found on the DIAC website at:
http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...hats-new.htm#j

As a result of the Minister's direction, as of 1 January 2009, all
applications for General Skilled Migration are being processed in the
following priority order:

1. Applications with a successful State & Territory Nomination (until all
applications have been processed); and then
2. Applications where the nominated occupation is on the Critical Skills
List (CSL) (until all applications have been processed); and then
3. Applications where the nominated occupation is on the Migration
Occupations in Demand List (MODL) (until all applications have been
processed); and then
4. All other remaining applications

The Minister's direction applies to the processing of all skilled migration
applications currently before the department.

Application Processing Information

Please Note: You should allow a further 10 working days after the relevant
date indicated below for your case officer to contact you. If you have not
been contacted after this time please lodge an enquiry about your
application at General Skilled Migration Post-Lodgement Enquiry Form

Applications are now being processed as follows:

State & Territory Nominated Applications:

Once the department has received and approved a nomination from a state or
territory authority processing of the application will commence within 10
working days of that approval.

Applications with a nominated occupation on the Critical Skills List (CSL):

Applications are being processed in date of lodgement order. The ASPC
expects to have commenced processing of all CSL applications held by this
office by the end of May 2009.

Information about the CSL can be found on the department's website at:
http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...kills-list.pdf

Applications with a nominated occupation on the Migration Occupations in
Demand List (MODL):
Applications are not being processed at present.

All Other Applications
Applications are not being processed at present.

They update the information weekly, usually on Tuesday but sometimes Wednesday. Please send a completely blank e-mail to aspc.processing@immi.gov.au whenever you want the latest iinformation.

Teacher - Secondary School Teacher 2413-11 - Australian Skills Recognition Information

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...kills-list.pdf

Since Secondary School Teacher is on the Critical Skills List your visa application would get reasonably fast track processing anyway. If you can get a points total of 120 or above then you may not need State Sponsorship because you would be eligible for a subclass 175 visa instead:

Skilled – Independent (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 175)

Australian General Skilled Migration Booklet

Let us examine your Points total, I suggest:

Skilled – Independent (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 175)

What do you reckon the total is, please? Doing well in the IELTS would give you an extra 10 points, not an extra 5, so 25 instead of 15.

If you do not have enough points for a 175 visa and there is no way to get enough then the next thing is to consider a State Sponsored subclass 176 visa instead:

Skilled – Sponsored (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 176)

Skilled – Sponsored (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 176)

The points total is 100 and the nominating State contributes 10 points of its own towards the total so my guess is that you probably wouldn't need to do the IELTS unless it is a requirement of the relevant State. Some insist on it, others don't.

Accessing the State/Territory websites via the DIAC website is laborious and slow. This link is faster:

State & Territory Migration Sites - australia.gov.au

Each State/Territory publishes its own list of occupations that it will consider offering sc 176 sponsorship for. NSW does not sponsor Teachers for the sc 176 but you will have to plod through the remaining 7 websites unfortunately! At this stage please check and triple check that you are in the List for the Skilled Sponsored subclass 176 visa, NOT the one for the Skilled Regional Sponsored subclass 475 visa. Some States offer two different Lists, so make sure you do not mix them up. (The ACT does not sponsor the sc 475 visa but the others all do.)

It is a pain until you get used to the various Lists and where to find them but you will soon get the hang of it. VIC is the only State that will accept State Sponsorship applications prior to the applicant receiving a positive skills assessment. I have heard that Teaching Australia are slow about processing applications. Meanwhile the States are at liberty to alter their Lists whenever they feel like it and they are not obliged to give any advance warning of changes. Much could change because the Minister keeps changing his mind at the moment, so please keep a close eye on the State Lists.

Several States do not have a shortage of Secondary School Teachers in the State Capital but there is a shortage in the Regions. WA offers a good map, which is below (I wish the others would copy the idea!)

State Migration Centre » Living in the Regions

The only bit of WA which is not "regional" is Perth Metro, which is a comparitively tiny area. Mandurah, 75kms south of Perth, is the main town in the Peel Region and there is now a fast, reliable commuter train from Mandurah to the Perth Central Business District, which takes 45 minutes. (My sister lives in Perth so I have visited WA a few times and have a better mental map of WA than I have of most of the others.) Mandurah is lovely and personally I would choose it ahead of Perth Metro.

Where the shortage is in the Regional Areas the States tend to say that they will sponsor Secondary School Teachers for the SRS 475 visa:

Skilled – Regional Sponsored (Provisional) Visa (Subclass 475)

The points total for the State Sponsored SRS 475 is the same as for the 176 but click on Eligibility and then Main Applicant if you want to convince yourself of this.

What does State Sponsorship for the sc 176 visa mean? It means you can live in any part of the State including in the State Capital and you can do whatever job you want, including either starting your own business doing something completely different from teaching, or not working at all if you can afford not to.

The State asks you to keep them informed of your address during your first two years in the State so that they can send you 4 feedback questionnaires. They are very simple and arrive every six months. It is not compulsory to complete them but the State is grateful if you do so because the purpose is to evaluate how well the State Sponsorship program is working. It is not a Big Brother exercise.

....they said that if we went out on this visa but decided to move no one would know/care as they never check up- is this true??

This claim betrays a fundamental failure to understand a single word of the relevant Law. Personally, when I seek legal advice I expect the person providing it to know what s/he is talking about but each to their own.....

The visa system is based on trust on both sides. The State Governments will keep their own side of any bargain made with you, as will the Federal Government, and they will not lie to you in order to induce you to enter into the bargain. That is what you are entitled to expect from them, isn't it? If so then why should your conduct towards them be any less honourable and honest than theirs towards you?

If somebody would encourage you to lie to a third party in order to get something for yourself, would this bright spark also be inclined to mislead you in order to part you from your cash, one might ask?

The States make careful enquiries of State Sponsorship applicants. They can spot the ones who are not serious about the place from a mile away. If they suspect that your stated intention of moving to the State concerned is not genuine then they will reject the application for State Sponsorship. They are not stupid and they are on the lookout for would-be hoodwinkers.

I don't know whether WA offers 176 Sponsorship to Secondary School Teachers but let us assume that they do and that they make you an offer which you accept. This bargain between you and WA is then offered to the Minister for Immigration via DIAC in the visa application. The Minister must accept the State nomination before the sc 176 visa can be granted.

Section 104 of the Migration Act 1958 provides that if there is a material change of circumstances prior to the validation of an offshore visa then the applicant/new visa holder has a duty to inform the Minister of the change via providing DIAC with Form 1022:

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1022.pdf

Changing one's mind about which part of Oz one wishes to move to is a material change of circumstances because it indicates an altered intention. If the Minister is advised of this change of plan prior to visa validation he will reconsider whether to accept the State Nomination. The obligation to inform the Minister rests with the visa applicant/new visa holder. The Minister trusts you to tell him the truth, just as you can expect to trust him to tell you the truth.

However once the visa is validated there is no visa Condition stating "The visa holder must live in ABC for 24 months after arrival in Australia." They abandoned imprisoning settlers some years ago.... Therefore if a new arrival validates his/her visa and then changes his/her mind about where to live there is nothing that the State or the Minister can do about it. New migrants do not know Australia well and it is inevitable that some of them will not like the first place that they try. Australia would prefer them to try somewhere else before ditching the entire continent. However if they really hate the place then Australia no longer insists that the settler must remain there like it or not.

It is almost impossible to prove what somebody's intentions were on dd/mm/yyyy. If the Minister moans, "I think Bloggs lied to me about his intentions," the Court will ask him, "What enquiries did you make of Bloggs before you granted the visa?" The Court's instinct will be that it is up to the Minister to make whatever enquiries he feels are necessary prior to granting the visa. It will not have much sympathy for him afterwards unless there is clear evidence of blatant deception which has induced the grant of the visa. Of course DIAC and the States have their suspicions about some people but it does not make sense to throw money at trying to prove a suspicion. And if they were suspicious, why did they fail to make further enquiries when they had the opportunity to do so?

It is not a case of the authorities not bothering to check up. Minister Evans is very energetic. No doubt the recently alleged Immi fraud racketeers thought that the Minister would not bother to check up on their own alleged antics. Unfortunately for them they under-estimated the tenacity of Senator Evans:

Migration agency fraud racket uncovered

The Students involved could end up as the victims. DIAC used to be called DIMIA. (Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.) According to the Press the acronym stood for Deport Immediately, Make Inquiries Afterwards. DIAC is notorious for being trigger happy about cancelling whole swathes of visas in one hit, leading to endless litigation against the Minister afterwards. Sometimes he wins. Sometimes he loses with costs awarded against him.

In reality, if you have been honest with the State and the Minister then they will not seek to punish you for an honest change of heart & mind later. Although they have never cancelled a 176 visa on the strength of a suspicion that the visa holder has lied to them, the potential to do so exists but those who have not lied to them have nothing to fear.

Mine is an accurate description of how the legislation works. I can supply the details of exactly which sections to read if you wish?

Now - if a State offers you Sponsorship, it ensures that you will get a fast track visa for Oz and it may well also negate the need for you to sit the IELTS. In return the State requests that you should give the State concerned a fair crack of the whip in order to see whether you can bear to contribute 24 months out of the whole of the rest of your life to doing your bit towards improving life for everyone in the relevant State. Is that really too much to ask? I doubt it. They are NOT saying, "You must put up with us for 24 months." They are saying, "Would you please be very kind and give our State a chance? We feel sure that the place will grow on you if you will give us a reasonable chance to prove this to you? If you can't bear it than so be it. All that we ask is that you should give our State a fair try."

I think most people are honourable enough to try to do something in return for the State which has been kind enough to give them a leg up on the visa processing ladder, don't you?

Best wishes

Gill

[DDTV]

Wow!!

Thankyou so much for such an informative and speedy reply! We are quite new to the process so we are researching everything in detail...we certainly don't intend to lie we just want to ensure what will happen if we can't find work in certain states/areas. The problem being that my OH needs to be q near to a city as his field of work lies in tv post production, unfortunately, most work in this field would be near a city and vary from state to state. I'm currently working on persuading him to become a carpet fitter or something less awkward lol!! However, he is excited about the much needed improvement to Austrailian t.v. lol ;-)
However, i'm relieved to hear that i'm not restricted to just teaching. I was informed from a friend who is now a primary teacher in Queensland that it can take a long time for them to recognise qualifications etc. Therefore, being able to take on other forms of work in the meantime gives me much relief...and an excuse to get away from the pressures of marking, exam prep etc!!
All in all it looks like a state sponsored visa is the one for us, as i think i will struggle to get my oh's occupation credited with 5 points - grr! Now we just need to decide on which state! Hopefully Queensland...will have to see what their visa requirements are like next week during the easter hols.

Thanks again and happy easter!

Ali

p.s. In terms of the agent 'trying to get us to part with cash' that was my suspicions but they seem to have a brill reputation, even on this forum. They claim 100% success rate (i think they poss achieve this by taking on the easy candidates), but do you know if there is anyway to verify this?? It seems q a big claim considering all the bureaucracy etc, etc.

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Ali

QLD are offering 176 sponsorship to certain specialist Secondary School Teachers:

2413-11 Secondary school teacher - manual arts/industrial design
2413-11 Secondary school teacher - mathematics
2413-11 Secondary school teacher - science

Skilled Sponsored Eligible Skills List

Do you teach one of the above, please?

If not, I think you may have to consider a different State if you need to be near a major City.

Why do you think you need a skills assessment for OH? I'd have thought that you can get 90 points towards a State Sponsored 176 visa on your own? If so there is no need to get OH's skills assessed as well.

Best wishes

Gill

[DDTV]

Hi OH here,

The skills assessment for me was only if we were going to go for the 175 visa ... now looks like 176 is definately the best for us.

Ali is an English & Media teacher so I think Queensland is a no go. I can't find anything fo New South Wales regarding Skilled Sponsored Eligible List so I'm guessing that's a no go. Victoria doesn't seem to list teachers on their list and South Australia only seems to list secondary school teacher in the provisional visa.

At the moment it's looking like WA is the place to be!

[Gollywobbler]

Hi OH here,

The skills assessment for me was only if we were going to go for the 175 visa ... now looks like 176 is definately the best for us.

Ali is an English & Media teacher so I think Queensland is a no go. I can't find anything fo New South Wales regarding Skilled Sponsored Eligible List so I'm guessing that's a no go. Victoria doesn't seem to list teachers on their list and South Australia only seems to list secondary school teacher in the provisional visa.

At the moment it's looking like WA is the place to be!

Hi OH

WA might well be the best option. Wait & see what SA do on Tuesday 31st March, though. They say they will publish new Lists then. The whole of SA is Regional so even the 475 visa would allow you to live and work in Adelaide. A cousin of mine was married to a TV newsreader from Adelaide briefly (it didn't last) so I assume they must have a State TV system.

NSW only sponsor Financial Wizards and IT Wizards for the subclass 176 visa so Sydney is out for the time being.

My sister has lived in Oz for 30 years now. She went out there on a Working Holiday visa, aged 21, married an Aussie and never came home! Elaine & Neil spent about 6 years on the road in their early 20s, travelling all over Oz with a sheep shearing team. Neil was one of the shearers. Elaine was the team's Wool Classer. They went to all the major cities and all the most remote Outback areas.

Eventually they settled in Perth. Neil's family are in Perth though if Elaine had preferred somewhere else she would have convinced Neil of her wishes. Elaine says she opted for Perth in the end because it is a practical choice with the kids they now have plus the climate has no extremes of anything.

Tell Google to find YouTube Videos + Mandurah + West Australia. There are hundreds of these mini vids and the intrepid have now been everywhere with cameras. I think the vids are invaluable when considering different parts of Oz.

On the subject of migration agents, not one of them has a 100% success rate unless s/he has only ever acted for a small handful of clients. Don't be fooled by sales patter.

I would suggest contact with at least half a dozen of the agents who are regularly mentioned on here before you try to choose one. Also, consider whether you really need an Agent at all, I suggest. Over 50% of all visa applicants do not use Agents and you have to be pretty careless to come unstuck on your own.

Best wishes

Gill