Immigration minister delivers a blow to migration hopes of thousands.

[illuminati]

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/callous-and-indifferent-australian-government-slammed-for-scrapping-three-types-of-skilled-visas-turning-away-16000-people-20150928-gjwyc7.html

 

The article states : "The change took effect on September 22 and affected three skilled visa subclasses in the independent, sponsored and regional sponsored categories."

 

Does anyone know what exact visa classes have been scrapped ?

[Bungo]

It is very old applications that have been scrapped.

[Paul1Perth]

Some people are lucky some aren't. My Sister, BIL and my nieces and nephew wanted to come when they first came out here on holiday. They loved it. He's in the police force but WA weren't recruiting at the time. They applied for SA who were recruiting, spent a lot of money on travelling down to London for interviews and medicals, they put a house move on hold, eventually they got invited to the embassy in London where a couple of people were coming over from SA to give them a talk. They rang us all exited and thought they were in. There were something like 2,000 applicants for 50 places and about 70 families were invited to the embassy. My Sis and family were told they hadn't made the first cut but had been put in a "pool" for the next intake. Obviously they were devastated but not given up.

 

Two years later they'd heard nothing, gave up on the idea, eventually saw a house they liked, bit the bullet and got on with life where they were. Them's the breaks.:sad:

[akiralx]

It is very old applications that have been scrapped.

 

Longstanding applications that DIAC have dragged out to absurd lengths by ludicrous delays.

 

Not just scrapped by the way: any fees have been pocketed and the applicants have been told the applications never existed!

[Guest]

There are a couple of threads been posted about this iirc.

 

This one was the first

 

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/239357-important-information-subclasses-175-176-475-capped-ceased.html

[Bungo]

Longstanding applications that DIAC have dragged out to absurd lengths by ludicrous delays.

 

Not just scrapped by the way: any fees have been pocketed and the applicants have been told the applications never existed!

 

I know. I have been reading the other threads on it.

[twister292]

Longstanding applications that DIAC have dragged out to absurd lengths by ludicrous delays.

 

Not just scrapped by the way: any fees have been pocketed and the applicants have been told the applications never existed!

 

Correction; the applications are taken to have never been made, and the visa application charges will be refunded.

 

It still leaves applicants out of pockets for other costs like medicals, skills assessments etc...

[CaptainC]

Correction; the applications are taken to have never been made, and the visa application charges will be refunded.

 

It still leaves applicants out of pockets for other costs like medicals, skills assessments etc...

 

Not to mention the time that they have sat in limbo waiting for the visa. For some it's been 6-7 years since applying.

[silencio]

And costs for translations of documents are also lost due to many migrants are from non-English speaking countries. We spent a fortune on all these translations more than 4 years ago, all the trades certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificate etc. I'm so sorry for these people, done all the work for nothing and still hoping that long!

[silencio]

Forgot to mention IELTS as well on top of all these costs. DIBP should at least reimburse all abolished applicants for these costs.

[Arshad]

I am part of this group who got affected by Cap and Cease and am really touched that so many people feel our pain here. that's the beauty of forums like this that it unites all kinds of people from all over the place who then share, in whatever way, the ups and downs of others.

 

Actually, this cap and cease would not have hurt so much or seemed so unfair if they had done it to the whole group of Pritority 5, who were a very large number - approximately 31,010 - in 2012. According to a letter received in July 2012 when the new SkillSelect system was introduced,

“As at 1 July 2012, there were approximately 15,500 family sponsored skilled migration cases representing approximately 31,010 applicants in Priority Group 5 awaiting allocation.”

If, according to their figures, there were 31,010 applicants in Priority Group 5 in July 2012, and 15,510 were independent ones who are mostly cleared, and out of the remaining 15,500 family sponsored, more than half were onshore applicants, so that leaves roughly less than 7000-6000 applicants in GSM176 & 475, who are now affect by this ‘Cap and Cease’ order. The actual number of applications affected by ‘cap and cease’ has not been disclosed officially.

 

They processed onshore independent skilled ones in 885 and some onshore family sponsored 886, then almost all offshore independent ones in 175 in the last one year and are currently finishing the onshore family sponsored 886. Feel good for these people, their wait was over so we thought that our wait too will come to an end because each year during the last few months - March to June - they were processing a few thousand applicants in the queue. when everyone was getting a chance, we thought our chance would also come and Never expected they would do this if they didn't do this to others in the category.

 

Now that they had reached the end of the queue with only offshore family sponsored 176 and 475, and a handful of independent 175s remaining, they announced they will not do so any more and applied the order 'retroactively'.

Why were others in the same Category 5, with the same set of skills and even family sponsorship – GSM 885, 886, 496 and most 175 – processed and not GSM 176, 475 and the remaining 175? If Family sponsorship is such an undesirable thing then they should have specified it when we applied or shouldn't have offered this option. many of us would have opted to lodge an independent application then, we thought showing family ties would simply speed up things!

 

In the last many years, every migration policy change was done after announcing it in advance and the older applications were not deemed void in any way, so why now? and as for having done this Cap and Cease before too in 2010, well they did but fewer people were affected and they could easily lodge new applications because the requirements had not changed much and they didn't wait so long, basically all they lost was money - but not time and opportunity as in our case. so there was no uproar or attempt to challenge/change it.

 

Applying again is not easy as so many occupations are off the SOL and losing 7 years due to DIBP makes us lose points for age too.

 

Common Laws work on Precedent, someone has to set a Precedent - we are trying to do so.

 

This was just to give a clear picture of our case to the people here. hope this will make you understand where we are coming from and heading to. You don't have to agree, but you can wish us luck... that's all I ask.

 

for those interested in reading up more about it, they can do so at Inside Story, SBS and Sydney Morning Herald.

 

Good day!

[twister292]

Unfortunate as it is, the Cap and Cease provisions have always been there in the Migration Act. They're not used too often, so little knowledge exists about them. They work by allowing the minister incumbent to limit the grants of a particular visa class in a year. If the visa class is already superseded, any applicants beyond the cap outstanding become void ab initio, and that's the "cease" part.

 

Last Cap and Cease was done when the 885/886/175/176 family of visas was introduced. Some of the older offshore 136 visas were capped/ceased back then (2010 if I recall correctly).

 

Minister Evans back then wanted cap and cease provisions by occupation...that legislation never passed because the parliament was prorogued for election before it could be tabled. SkillSelect was essentially a sideways move to implement that.

 

Now that the SkillSelect family of visas are firmly in place, and the 885/886 visas are fully allocated, they've ejected the 175/176 remainder of the queue.

 

In all honesty, I sympathise with the applicants, but in a way it should relieve them as well. Considering the capped applicants are all offshore, there's no repatriation cost, and they can make other decisions now. At least they have closure from DIBP and don't need to hang in limbo...moreover, the economy has deteriorated substantially, and considering the occupations removed from the SOL are low in demand as it is, the applicants would have a serious struggle on the plate on that front too...

 

As for re-imbursing IELTS fees, DIBP can only repay to applicants what they have collected...anything on top would be a whole lot of red tape and would have regulatory hurdles as well.