Watcher

The 2 year residence and 1 year work requirements are time of application criteria hence if you apply before they are both met your application must be refused even if you have met them by the time it is decided.

No scoring more points than in your invitation has no impact. points for the factors in the points testa re based on your circumstances as at date of invitation not application and the requirement is you score at least the same score as in your invitation.

Your brother needs to talk with his agent (or another) re an appeal to the Migration Review Tribunal, providing he actually applied for a skills assessment from ACS before he applied for his visa the MRT can consider his results that were not provided to Immigration. If he did not apply for the skills assessment before the visa application no point. Regards

DIAC do not say 100% of applications should be finalised within 18 months. Service Standards are that 75% of applications are finalized within the period given. Unfortunately you are in the unlucky 25% http://www.immi.gov.au/about/charters/client-services-charter/standards/2.1.htm

Some perspective here. DIAC's external service standards are those relevant to the transaction a client has with the Department, it's internal processes and service levels are simply that (internal to DIAC) unless they impact on the delivery of the external service standard. All applications being quoted here are well within the published external service standards, which take into account that there will be peaks and troughs in workloads in the areas that are involved in the delivery of the end product - a visa.

The case officer must consider all evidence you provide in determing points for work experience. If your work experience after Feb 2012 was with the same employer and same duties you should not have a problem. I assume you lodged your application with IEA in Feb 2012 and hence the gap from Feb-May.

The occupation you nominate in your EOI must be the one you have had your skills assessed in, in your case by ACS. You can only be nominated for a 489/190 visa in the occupation you have nominated in your EOI. Regards

As per my earlier post your occupation is not relevant to your chance of an invite unless an Occupational Ceiling is reached, what matters is how high your score is compared to other applicants. Do date the lowest score anyone has been ivited for for 189 and 489 FS is 65 (from PIO other posters and reports here http://www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/index/reports/report-2012-09/)

DIAC determine the total number of 189 and 489 Family sponsored cases to be invited in each round. The highest scoring applicants (with pass mark or better) are then invited up to this number. Occupation is irrelevant unless an Occupational Ceiling is reached in which case it doesn't matter how many points you have score as you cannot be invited until the next program year. See http://www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/ [h=4]"Independent and family sponsored visas[/h]Invitations will be issued automatically to people with the highest ranking EOIs, subject to occupation ceilings and to those whose points score exceed the current pass mark. The points test pass mark is the minimum number of points required to receive an invitation. Not all EOIs that meet the points test pass mark will receive an invitation. The department’s staff will not choose who will receive an invitation. Invitations will be issued regularly, such as every month." Regards

If you search through postings you will see that TRA applications are taking a very long time. You should however follow up with ASA re what visa they now think you will be applying for as you can no longer apply for a 176 visa and yiu could not apply previously fora 176 visa before your skills had been positively assessed. Regards

The "character" questions for migartion make no distinction between things you believe will not be on your record and those you think will be you have to disclose everything. Failing to declare convictions with a sentance of less than 12 months is unlikely to result in refusal on basis of not meeting the character test but would be a ground for refusal under Public Interest Criteria 4020, providing false or misleading information. Suggest the OP talks to a RMA.

If you follow the DIAC allocation page you will note that the Priority 4 Family Sponsored date keeps moving forward, these applicants together with those who were allocated to case officers before 1 July 2012 will make up the 4200+ already allocated. Not all of these will be approved and as other posters have commented the Family Sponsored "program for 2011/12 was 4100 but 11800 people were granted visas in Skilled Australian Sponsored (Family Sponsored). Expect little movement for Priority Group 5 Family Sponsored applicants this year but Priority Group 4 will kep moving.

If you were sponsored by a state (on or offlist at the time) before State Migration Plans (SMP) i.e. pre July 2010 and they are indicating that your occupation is one they will consider under their offlist you have to contact them to see if they will now nominate you offlist under an SMP. If your application has not already allocated to a CO it means DIAC never received an acceptable nomination from the state before SMPs and will only process you as state sponsored now if you get an acceptable nomination. Hope this helps.

There is information relevant to your situation on the DIAC website http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/gsm-priority5-processing.htm http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/estimated-allocation-times.htm You can see from this that no Priority Group 5 175 applications are being allocated (or have been for a long time) and none will be until all Priority 4 175 applications are allocated, when this starts you will see the dates on the allocation page Your application would be allocated when older Priority Group 5 applications have been (175 visas started on 1 September 2007), you will not have to be on the SOL then.

I'm sure here are the definitions for the terms Competent, Proficient and Superior English which apply to visas other than Student visas i.e Schedule 6D (the points test) [h=1]Part 6D.2 English language qualifications[/h] [TABLE=width: 491] [TR] [TD]Item [/TD] [TD]At the time of invitation to apply for the visa, the applicant had ... [/TD] [TD]Number of points [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]6D21 [/TD] [TD]superior English [/TD] [TD]20 [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]6D22 [/TD] [TD]proficient English [/TD] [TD]10 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [h=5]Reg 1.15C Competent English[/h][substituted by SLI 2012, 82 with effect from 01/07/2012 - LEGEND note] [h=6](1) A person has competent English if:[/h](a) the person undertook a language test, specified by the Minister in an instrument in writing for this paragraph; and (b) the test was conducted in the 3 years immediately before the day on which the application was made; and © the person achieved a score specified in the instrument. [h=6](2) A person has competent English if the person holds a passport of a type specified by the Minister in an instrument in writing for this subregulation.[/h] For the purposes of subparagraph 1.15C(a)(iii) the following scores: • an IELTS test score of at least 6 for each of the 4 test components of speaking, reading, writing and listening; or • a score of at least ‘B’ in each of the four components of an OET. For the purposes of paragraph 1.15D© the following scores:• an IELTS test score of at least 7 for each of the 4 test components of speaking, reading, writing and listening; or • a score of at least “B” in each of the four components of an OET. [h=5]Reg 1.15D Proficient English[/h][substituted by SLI 2012, 82 with effect from 01/07/2012 - LEGEND note] A person has proficient English if: (a) the person undertook a language test, specified by the Minister in an instrument in writing for this paragraph; and (b) the test was conducted in the 3 years immediately before the day on which the application was made; and © the person achieved a score specified in the instrument. For the purposes of paragraph 1.15D© the following scores: • an IELTS test score of at least 7 for each of the 4 test components of speaking, reading, writing and listening; or • a score of at least “B” in each of the four components of an OET. [h=5][/h] [h=5]Reg 1.15EA Superior English[/h][1.15EA substituted by SLI 2012, 82 with effect from 01/07/2012 - LEGEND note] A person has superior English if: (a) the person undertook a language test, specified by the Minister in an instrument in writing for this paragraph; and (b) the test was conducted in the 3 years immediately before the day on which the application was made; and © the person achieved a score specified in the instrument. For the purposes of paragraph 1.15EA© the following scores: • an IELTS score of at least 8 in each of the 4 test components of speaking, reading, writing and listening; or • a score of at least “A” in each of the four components of an OET.