xenos1987

Hi there you can also call up DIBP and ask when you are eligible assuming no travel of more than 90 days has been/will be done

The Temporary Residents Program has four broad categories: • Working Holiday Makers—young people holidaying in Australia with short‑term work and study rights. At the end of 2009–10, Australia had reciprocal working holiday visa arrangements with 25 countries. • Overseas Students—(or international students) are people studying full‑time in registered courses in Australia on a Student visa valid for the length of their course. • Skilled temporary residents—people mostly recruited by Australian companies who enter as temporary skilled migrants for up to four years under the Temporary Business (Long Stay) (subclass 457) visa. • Other temporary residence—a range of temporary residence visas allowing people to come to Australia for social, cultural, international relations and training purposes. http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2009-10/pop-flows-chapter3.pdf Dunno and this pdf does not make it clearer

https://www.ecom.immi.gov.au/citz/startIntervalCalc.do [h=1]Lawful Residence date[/h]If you were granted a Temporary Residence or Permanent Residence visa before you arrived in Australia, the date that you first arrived on that visa is the Lawful Residence date. If you were granted a Temporary Residence or Permanent Residence visaafter you arrived in Australia, the date that that visa was granted is the Lawful Residence date.

Peach, I think if you decided to apply for citizenship today then if you were legally here (on any temp visa) on 24/09/2009 and you have been a PR since 24/09/2012 then you are eligible provided you meet the "Absences from Australia of no more than 1 year in the last 4 years and not more than 90 days in the 12 months immediately before applying" criteria.

I don't think so. DIMIA/DIAC is well aware that there will no longer be any further applicants from 175/176/885/886 subclasses and therefore in my opinion can assess a number of applications every year to reduce the backlog. If a cap and cease were to happen it would have happened a long time ago and 176 lodged prior to Sept 2007 would have not been the only group to be affected by the cap and cease measure.

Cool wasn't aware that it was possible that a visitor visa counts towards it - guess it would make sense since being on a student visa (temp visa) does count towards meeting the residency requirement

http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applying/how_to_apply/migrant_perm_res/ If you were granted a migrant visa offshore your permanent residence date is the date of your first arrival in Australia on this visa. If you were granted a permanent residence visa onshore your permanent residence date is the date that visa was issued. You also need to be in Australia for 4 years (1 of which as a PR) to be eligible.

Seems like there will be an email advising applicants how many are left in the queue, any changes to priority processing, etc Usually most of the Cat 5 processing happens in the second half of the financial year (early 2014 onwards). I hope that there is good news for everyone waiting.

Hi Vanddir1, I am a 886 applicant. The onshore backlog is getting smaller and smaller. So hopefully some good news for you.

Congrats on the recent PR grants. Keep the positive news flowing :biggrin: Fingers crossed for our offshore friends. New financial year seems promising.

Getting the 3 months work experience post graduation can become a tough experience. Employers can be reluctant to hire someone who is not a PR and someone who is also a graduate with no or little experience. However, if you are able to secure an internship while studying it may lead to better chances. Look at Universities that promote an internship of some sort because believe me it can be very hard to obtain work experience in any given field. As for the immigration rules changing we cannot predict what will happen. Skill Select seems to fix a lot of problems that plagued the immigration office so it may stay a while. You can only apply by invitation only and therefore DIMIA can control the number of people from a certain field in any given year. Read up on job opportunities in Australia in IT. I have read that there are a lot of IT employees that are having difficulty finding jobs - this may change in the future. All the best in your studies.

There is always the possibility that in any migration program for any year, the planning levels can change whether this be an increase or decrease. Let's hope that the changes whatever they may be is positive and hopefully the government and future governments learn not to apply any legislation retrospectively which is why we have such a huge backlog.

Hmmm this does raise an interesting question...what happens if a sponsor withdraws his sponsorship?

Hey Aasha, Are you an online applicant or paper based? Just curious why they are asking for Form 1277 when online applicants can submit their sponsorship form online unless you aren't one. Thanks :biggrin:

Great to see the old Priority 4 groups have now finished. Hope that everyone gets their visa asap. I don't think that 885 will stop, there are 40000+ places for independent category. If it has or slowed down, then the new financial year is 3 months away and there will be another 40000+ places. Before last week F5 886 had been on hold for more than a year stuck on 22 Dec 2008. Best wishes everyone :biggrin: