Killara

For the moment, you do not need to apply for a protection (refugee) visa, because you have a current visa which allows you to stay and work in Australia. If your wife does divorce you and notifies immigration, then immigration will write to you and inform you that they are considering cancelling your visa. At that point, you could then apply for the protection visa. You would be allowed to stay in Australia until your protection claim is determined. You would not be sent to Nauru. By waiting until later to apply for the protection visa, you will have more evidence (or you should) of your change of religion, which at the moment, after only one month, immigration would have difficulty believing. If you apply for the protection visa later when you are informed that your current visa may be subject to cancellation, you will have had more time to demonstrate that you are committed to your new religion - for example, known at your local church as a person who regularly goes to church and practises their new religion. If you apply for a protection (refugee) visa on the basis of change of religion, immigration will investigate whether you have been known to be practising your new religion in Australia and to what extent.

1. No points for securing a job - as others have said, if you can secure a job, and want to pursue Australian PR, then there are employer-sponsored PR visa options which do not require any points score. As a NZ Citizen, there are also more favourable exemptions of the age requirement which can be obtained on employer sponsored visas than for other nationalities, so employers in Australia really face little difficulty hiring you as a NZ citizen. 2. Immigration will not stop an employer hiring you because you are over 40. Requirements for obtaining Australian PR however are set by the Australian government, not the employers, so the government can and has set an age criteria for skilled migration - though, as stated, with more favourable exemptions of the age requirement for NZ citizens. 3. Your posts have been about meeting the points requirement for an independent skilled PR visa - in my view, it makes perfect sense that no points be awarded for securing a job for an "independent" PR visa - the idea being that the visa applicant for the "independent" skilled visa possesses skills and qualifications to such a level that no job offer is required to be granted the PR visa; implicent in the reasoning behind this is that with the skills and qualification that the independent skilled applicant has (in an occupation in which is considered to be needed in Australia), DIBP can have reasonable confidence that the independent skilled visa applicant (given their proven skills, qualifications, and ability in the English language) will be able to find employment in Australia. To award points for a job offer, but not for proving English language ability, would almost certainly lead to PR being granted to persons who then lose their jobs because they cannot communicate to the required professional level in English. Exactly... and the reasoning behind this is that the required ability in the English language has been proved by the fact that the person has been employed in the position for the required period of time, so they have demonstrated that they have the required level of English language skills to perform the job. Not a scam; the IELTS fee doesn't go to DIBP; and it shouldn't amaze you that people are very willing (and let me be clear: not only very willing, but indeed very happy) to pay the IELTS fee rather than get sponsored. Being able to get PR without sponsorship is a huge deal for most people. Avoiding potential difficulties with sponsorship and not being obligated to an employer is a huge benefit of an independent skilled visa, and taking IELTS is a very small price to pay if it is the difference between an independent skilled visa and requiring sponsorship. Potential problems of sponsorship breaking down are more serious for non-NZ citizens, as a non-NZ citizen might not be able to stay, let alone work, in Australia, whereas the NZ citizen in this situation would be able to continue to live and work in Australia. So perhaps your amazement is because you are only looking at it from the point of view of being a NZ citizen. The requirements for grant of skilled independent visa applies to all nationalities equally. NZ citizens do need a visa to live and work in Australia. Most NZ citizens who are not permanent residents of Australia hold a Special Category Visa (subclass 444), which is a temporary visa which is usually granted each time the NZ citizen lands in Australia and ceasing each time they leave Australia. Many NZ citizens do get Australian PR. NZ citizens residing in Australia can enrol in Medicare: http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/medicare/medicare-card/medicare-enrolment-for-new-zealand-citizens

Sorry if you took offence @Pumpkin. No offence was intended. I don't consider that my response was in any way aggressive. My use of the exclamation mark denotes my own amusement (as a lawyer responding to the suggestion that a meeting with a client didn't qualify as a business meeting, when such meetings are of course very much part of my business and I would have thought viewed the same way by clients. I found it amusing; I can understand that you may not have seen the humour, but I don't think you should have taken it to be aggressive. I hope this clears it up.). Using exclamation marks to denote amusement of the writer is one of the main uses of exclamation marks: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/exclamation-mark (but now we are completely off topic, so let us not derail the thread).

I would consider meeting with legal team to be a business meeting! This comes up quite a lot actually with 457 visas - and I am not saying that this is the case here, but just giving this example which I think @Pumpkin would agree is a business meeting: Person on 457 visa is dismissed by employer and the employee is not paid wages and entitlements due to them at the end of their employment and employee is taking unfair dismissal action against the employer and action to recover the wages and entitlements due to them (of course in these circumstances the employer should also be reported to DIBP, but this could be in addition to civil action against the employer). Unfortunately this does happen, and some employers may even do this knowing that the employee may need to leave the country and may not return. The example is a little OT though. Any meeting with a legal team to obtain legal advice should be considered to be a business meeting. Like @Pumpkin though, from the initial post, I thought the OP was asking could he/she return to Australia without any visa, and the answer to this of course is: all non-citizens of Australia require a valid visa to enter Australia. The eta is a visa. Deciding between tourism and business eta will depend on determining the primary purpose. If going to have a general holiday also and just popping in to see the legal team while in the neighbourhood, then tourist eta is probably the most appropriate. If meeting with the legal team is the primary purpose for the trip, then business eta, even if OP will then do some tourist things before leaving Australia.

If you apply for the student visa in Australia before your WHV expires, the bridging visa will have the same work rights as your WHV had (work for any employer for up to 6 months). So legally, you would be entitled to work; though that may not be much help if your employment ends on the day that the WHV expires.

While your employer's stance is important as they will be sponsoring you, it is your visa application - and for that, you are the client, not your employer. You should not be forced to use someone who you do not have confidence in. I suggest that you explain to your employer that for your part of the visa application, you would like to use your own registered migration agent / lawyer. Your employer could still use their lawyer for their part in the process, if they wish. Their concern about their privacy if you had your own agent / lawyer is unfounded - their privacy is not going to be compromised by you having your own lawyer. Any registered migration agent / lawyer you employed would be bound by confidentiality, and information and documents which are provided to a lawyer would also be protected from disclosure by legal privilege. And who would you use for the appeal? Your employer's lawyer again? You don't want to be in the situation that you have to appeal and then considering again whether to continue with your employer's lawyer if you do not have confidence in him/her. Do the application right first time, rather than being in a far worse position later on needing to appeal against a decision on an application that was not properly prepared.

Minor convictions from more than 10 years ago would not usually be fatal to your chances of getting PR. With a properly prepared application addressing all issues (including the failure to previously disclose the convictions previously), your chances of obtaining PR would be much higher than what your lawyer has indicted, but it is crucial that you prepare the application professionally, and by that I mean use a registered migration agent who has experience making submissions on character grounds.

OP specifically asked whether it is possible to be granted the 189 visa first and then qualify as a lawyer in Australia. A lot of people would like to get the PR granted first. I certainly was glad to get PR first. Also, OP will need a visa to come to Australia to qualify in the first place. OP might like to be able to work in Australia while completing the academic requirements for admission. A PR visa would be of great use in that regard. Mike seems to forget that just because New Zealanders can come to Australia and have the right to stay as long as they want and have full work rights in Australia, that this does not apply to other nationalities. Practicalities such as having a visa to come to Australia in the first place perhaps? Practicalities such as being able to work in Australia while completing the academic requirements for admission? Unfortunately mike hasn't any idea about practicalities facing non-AU non-NZ citizens. When making such important decisions such as migrating to a new country, it is very important that professional advice be obtained. In considering migration matters, I would of course strongly recommend to ensure that any advice that you do get is from a registered migration agent.

"A positive skills assessment from a state legal admission board" does not mean admission as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW. The criteria for the grant of a subclass 189 or 190 visa is governed by the Migration Act 1958 and the Migration Regulations 1994, not by the Legal Profession Admission Board of NSW, or any of the State Law Admission Authorities (SLAA) for that matter. The SLAAs are however the relevant assessment authority for the legal profession occupations, and that of course makes perfect sense. It is possible, for some applicants, to obtain a positive skills assessment from a State Law Admission Authority, without having been admitted as a Lawyer in Australia... except, as we have all pointed out, it is very unlikely that the Legal Profession Admission Board of NSW would provide a positive skills assessment without the applicant first having been admitted as a Lawyer in NSW. An overseas legal practitioner can apply to a SLAA for an assessment of their qualifications and experience. DIBP will treat that assessment as a skills assessment (hence not necessary to be admitted as a lawyer in Australia to obtain a skills assessment). An experienced overseas legal practitioner may be able to obtain a positive skills assessment without having first been admitted as a lawyer in Australia. I have experience of this. It is not correct to say that any State or Territory in Australia has more lenient academic requirements than others. All States and Territories have adopted what have become known as the "Priestley 11" as the academic requirements for admission. For overseas legal practitioners (other than NZ applicants that is), each SLAA has adopted the "Uniform Principles for Assessing Qualifications of Overseas Applicants for Admission to the Australian Legal Profession" (the "Uniform Principles"). Each SLAA will assess an overseas applicant (other than a NZ applicant) for admission using the Uniform Principles. Human factors comes in to it then, and despite each SLAA applying the Uniform Principles in conducting their assessments, assessments from the different SLAAs are not necessarily, em, uniform. The point though, is that you will be told by each SLAA that the academic requirements are the same for each State and Territory.

Sorry @louisella, I don't know whether WA would be any better than NSW. It usually makes most sense to apply to the State where you intend to practise. However, once admitted in one State or Territory in Australia, you can apply for a practising certificate from any of the States or Territories. (Previously it was necessary to be admitted in each State in which you wished to practise. That is no longer the case.) As regards to the job market that others have raised doubts about, it is true that the market is very competitive with probably an over supply of local law graduates. An overseas lawyer with no experience could struggle to find employment as a lawyer in the capital cities but should have reasonable prospects in more regional areas. An overseas lawyer with a few years experience in any practice area should be able to find employment in the capital cities as the experience in practise will give them an advantage over local graduates with no experience.

I agree with @Rupert. It would be misuse of a tourist visa to use it as a way of getting onshore in order to lodge an onshore application. If a tourist visa is applied for with the intended purpose being to apply for an onshore visa, then the application for the tourist visa involves making intentional misrepresentations to DIBP.

Relationship status is not a restriction on being granted a WHV, and you should always be completely honest in answering the questions on the visa application form, so if you are in a de facto relationship, you should indicate that. It may lead to consideration of whether you are a genuine visitor whose principal purpose is to spend a holiday in Australia (this is a criteria for grant of the visa), if you are in Australia and in a de facto relationship in Australia. If DIBP decided that your principal purpose was not for a holiday in Australia, then the visa could be refused. You may be asked to provide evidence that your principal purpose is for (/to continue) your holiday in Australia. There is also a possibility that if you do convince DIBP that you satisfy the criteria - that the principal purpose is as a genuine visitor to continue your holiday in Australia, then the visa may be granted with a "no further stay" condition - preventing you from lodging a partner visa application in Australia.

As a lawyer you will of course be able to read the applicable Migration Regulations from which you will note that what is required is a positive skills assessment. The legislation does not explicitly require you to be admitted as a lawyer in Australia before you can be granted a 189 visa, but does require you to have a positive skills assessment, amongst other things. So, really the question is whether you can get a positive skills assessment without having been admitted as a lawyer in Australia. You have mentioned that you intend to apply for a skills assessment from either Queensland or New South Wales. On the Legal Profession Admission Board of NSW website,it says: Therefore, in order to obtain a "Skilled Migration Letter", a person will need to have overseas qualifications assessed in accordance with the Board's Rules and the Uniform Principles for Assessing Qualifications of Overseas applicants for admission and then be admitted as a lawyer. I think you are very unlikely to get a positive skills assessment from NSW without having been admitted as a lawyer in Australia, and I have heard that QLD is even more difficult than NSW, but the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board's advice on their website (quoted above) is not an accurate statement of the legislative requirements set out in the Migration Regulations. That said, it won't help you obtain a positive skills assessment from them, which is what you need. If you can obtain a positive skills assessment from a State Law Admission Authority in Australia based on your current qualifications and experience, then admission in Australia as a lawyer is not a prerequisite to applying for a 189 visa. For the 189 visa, you will see from the regulations that there are criteria to be met at time of application and at time of grant. The regulations do not provide for meeting the criteria within a timeframe after grant. In order to be admitted as an Australian lawyer, you will be required to complete some academic subjects and also some PLT (practical legal training) subjects. For the academic part, I am not aware of any possibility of sitting the exams in London and certainly not online (for the exams... though study online may be possible), but for the PLT part, I think the College of Law does have the option of sitting the PLT exams in the UK.

The notification of grant of the second WHV should have informed you that the visa which you had previously held had now ceased as you had been granted a (second) WHV. You then need to think of it in terms of "what are the conditions of my visa which I currently hold". The answer is that on that visa you can only work for the one employer for a maximum of 6 months on that visa. So you need to look at the date that that visa came in to effect. For an applicant in Australia, the date the second WHV comes in to effect will be the date of grant. If, following grant of the second WHV, you had logged in to VEVO to see your current visa status, it would have showed your second WHV with date of grant and date of expiry and with the visa conditions which apply to that visa. The unused portion of the right to work for the one employer for up to 6 months from the visa which you previously held is not "carried over" to the new visa.

WHV is your best option for now. While in Australia, you can then look at other visa options such as skilled migration. If you apply for another visa such as skilled visa or partner visa while you are in Australia on WHV, you will be granted a bridging visa that will allow you to stay in Australia until a decision is made on the visa application made in Australia. You may be able to apply for a second WHV if you do 3 months working in designated work in rural / regional Australia. It is unlikely that you will be eligible for the partner visa within the 12 months of WHV unless exceptional circumstances apply as you will not have met the 12 month requirement. Also for the partner visa you would have to prove that your relationship with your partner (not just a boyfriend) is akin to a spousal relationship. The 12 month requirement would not apply if in fact you get married within the 12 months or have your relationship registered with the State in which you reside with your partner, but you would still have to show that the marriage / relationship was genuine and that you are in a genuine spousal relationship. Given that at this stage it seems you intend to move to Australia and remain in Australia with your new boyfriend and that you will likely have several very different visa options from now and over the next year to two you should really consult a registered migration agent and discuss your best visa strategy for moving to and staying in Australia.

Daz35wood's concern is justified. A second WHV upon grant replaces the first WHV. The first WHV ceases to have effect upon the grant of the second. The second will have an expiry date 12 months after the date that the first WHV would have expired, so yes a second WHV can be in effect for 18 months. A second WHV is a substantive visa which comes in to effect immediately upon grant. It does not sit there until the first WHV expires in the way that a bridging visa would. A substantive visa upon grant cancels any other visa which the visa applicant previously had. As it is a condition of the second WHV that the visa holder not work for one employer for more than 6 months, the 2nd WHV holder can only work for the same employer for 6 months from grant. Yes, I agree that the visa applicant is thereby disadvantaged for bring organised by applying early. Had the OP waited to the last few weeks of validity of the first WHV before applying for the second WHV, it would have been possible to work for the same employer for longer..

As the non-EU spouse of a UK citizen, he has the right to live and work in any EU country other than the UK if his wife, the UK citizen, wishes to move to that EU country to work or to look for work. So even if he could not get a British passport, with an Australian passport and his UK wife, they could go elsewhere in the EU - for example to Ireland. As others have said, New Zealand might also be a possibility. I agree with what nearly everyone had been saying here, that the newly weds should be paying for this themselves. But, if financial help is to be given, why is the wife's family not helping out? If they are asking you for $5000, you have the right to know much more than you do. As others have recommended, I think the best thing to do would be for you, and the newly weds, to go see a registered migration agent and the wife should bring all of her documents from her various visa applications so that the migration agent can review these and advise you on the prospects of a successful partner visa application for your son and his wife. Another thing to consider: this prospective partner visa application, if they apply for it, it is certainly going to come under very close scrutiny from the Department - to test it for being a genuine spousal relationship. They are going to need a lot of proof of it being genuine. Almost certainly they will be asking you to complete a Statutory Declaration for you to declare that you believe the relationship to be genuine and why you believe that the relationship is genuine. For you to be able to do that, honestly, they really should be making a huge effort to convince you of the genuineness of their relationship and part of this would be by being very open with you about this girl, her previous relationship, and why it is not the marriage of convenience that it looks like... because I don't think you are convinced yet that this is a genuine relationship, and I think your son and his wife should be addressing this with you rather than asking you to finance the basis for a further stay for this girl, for whatever length it may turn out to be. On this last point, while some onshore partner visas applications are taking up to 13 months to process, this application could process much more quickly. The department could quickly take the view that this is not a genuine application and seek evidence very early on. If they are not convinced by that, they could simply reject the visa. Your son and his wife would probably be then asking you to fund an appeal to the Migration Review Tribunal - so that the wife can stay in Australia pending the outcome of that. How far are you prepared to fund them? I think you can see that this will not be an easy application. Because of your daughter-in-law's (I guess I can call her that?) previous relationship, immigration history, and the perception that this is a marriage of convenience, it really is essential that you all get some good advice from a registered migration agent who can advise on the prospects of a successful application. Otherwise there is a very high likelihood of a visa refusal and then they will be asking you to fund an appeal. So it is not just the $5000 that they are asking for, there are going to be more fees - I would recommend employing a migration agent for day 1, rather than you all wishing that an agent had been used if the visa is refused and your son and his wife then want to appeal.

If applying for a second 457 at the end of your current 457, you could use the original references plus the reference from your employment in Australia. If you are thinking of staying in Australia longer term / permanently, then you might want to look at the Employer Nomination Scheme / subclass 186 visa. You might be eligible to apply for that after just 2 years on the 457 if your employer is willing to sponsor you for it. See DIBP's information: https://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/186.aspx Ah, sorry.. just spotted that age is a factor. (There are exemptions for very High salary, but that might not apply to your circumstances. Still might be worth getting some advice from a registered migration agent who can look at all your circumstances and see what the best options might be)

Yes it causes a problem. You must be 18-30 at time of application.

Not from India, but I know many lawyers who have migrated to Australia from Ireland & UK. But I see from your profile that you are a software engineer / consultant not a lawyer/dentist?

I think you mean 12 month residence rather than relationship? If so, I completely agree with you... However OP may not have time to pursue having a refusal of registration overturned as he appears to be on a visitor visa, which may be expiring soon. You could seek to withdraw your student visa application and lodge a partner visa application, but before choosing this option, I would strongly recommend that you sit down with a registered migration agent who will best be able to help sort out this mess. Usually if a visa application is withdrawn, the visa application charge which has been paid is forfeited.. however you can request a refund when withdrawing the application and set out the reasons for it. If you have received poor migration advice (which it seems you have) from a person who is in Australia and not registered as a migration agent (therefore acting unlawfully) then DIBP may consider your request for a refund, particularly if withdrawn early and explained that incompetent advice had been received and you now wish to apply for the most appropriate visa. I would suggest that if you pursue this possibility that you get your new migration agent to submit the request to DIBP on your behalf. If you get a "no further stay" condition you will not be able to apply for a partner visa onshore unless the condition was waived (it is very difficult to obtain a waiver of a 'no further stay' condition). You could still apply offshore. a registered migration agent will be able to go through the evidence which you currently have and advise whether you have sufficient evidence to apply now.. and if not, advise what you will need, when you might be able to apply, and what your best visa options are,

Hi djamesy. From what you said in your original post, it seems that your reason for wanting to stay in Australia is to be with your partner. Your original post seems to suggest that the advice you received from your migration agent was to apply for a student visa so that you could stay in Australia longer so that you could meet the 12 month requirement for de facto. If your migration agent was aware that you had both been residing in Victoria for 12 months, and that your reason for wanting to stay in Australia was to be with your partner, then your migration agent should have discussed the possibility of registering your relationship so that the 12 month duration of defacto relationship would not be required.. rather than suggesting a student visa - if studying was secondary to you wanting to stay to be with your partner. If you go ahead with the student visa application, given that you have first been on WHV, then tourist visa, and then to be student visa, then there is a very real possibility that a "no further stay" condition could be put on your student visa. I would think this is quite likely, and certainly the Statement of Purpose may very well be to test this. In these circumstances, I think you should look to register your relationship in Victoria, and then apply for the partner visa. If you wish to continue with your current migration agent, you should discuss this with your agent.

As to whether OP can rightfully answer "no" to the question of whether he owes an outstanding debt to the Australian government, I think OP should first try to determine whether he is likely to owe a debt to the Australian government when the tax return is done - this might require the advice of a tax consultant / accountant if OP is unsure. If OP comes to the conclusion that when the tax return is filed, he will not owe a debt, then I think that he can answer the question as "no" but I would recommend putting in a clarification of answer explaining that he has to file a tax return but that to the best of his knowledge and belief, when the tax return is filed, he will not owe a debt to the Australian government, and explain why he thinks he will not owe a debt (e.g. that only income was an employee and employer withheld tax). If OP thinks that following filing of tax return that he will likely have a debt to pay, then he should answer the question as "yes" and provide the clarification as to debt that he believes he will have when the tax return is filed,and how he intends to pay it. If possible, I would suggest filing the tax return before the student visa application, so that the answer to this question is known, but if that is not possible, then I recommend the above approach.

Temporary residents are not exempt from lodging tax returns in Australia. The ATO has a useful tool for determining whether you are required to file a tax return : http://calculators.ato.gov.au/scripts/axos/axos.asp?CONTEXT=&KBS=Lodge13.XR4&go=ok

I can confirm what maggiemay says about Victoria being strict. It is necessary to show that both persons in the relationship are ordinarily resident in Victoria, and for this purpose it is usually necessary to show that the last 12 months have been in Victoria. Perhaps the OP has this though as arrived Dec 2012?