Visa subclass 457 can apply anywhere

Many people have enquired about the differences between lodging visa subclass 457 application offshore and onshore. Visa subclass 457 has gone through many reviews and scrutiny and it has been refined many times. Personally, I am pleased with how the visa subclass 457 operates. Realistically, there is almost no different between offshore and onshore application. Apart from onshore application will get a Bridging Visa A once the application has been lodged, while offshore application will not receive any Bridging Visas at all. That is just the nature of all offshore visa applications anyway.

Therefore, offshore visa subclass 457 applicants can come to Australia and wait for their visa outcomes in Australia. It is just a matter of getting another visa to come to Australia and wait for the outcome.

In fact, visa subclass 457 is quite fast in term of processing timeframe. Based on my experience, visa subclass 457 can be granted within 4-5 weeks. That's  not long at all. Again, this is based solely on my experiences!

Those who have the concept and mindset about the differences between lodging visa application offshore and onshore for visa subclass 457 need to change their mindset a little bit.

MARN

While doing your own immigration application is possible, whenever you engage a professional to represent you on an Australia migration matter, please ensure that your representative has a MARN; Migration Agents Registration Number. It is mandatory for all migration professionals to have MARN from MARA and it needs to be renewed yearly. That is to ensure the standard and up to date knowledge as the Australian migration law is extremely dynamic and keeps changing all the time. Usually after the election, whenever there is changing in govern party, the legislation can go either way. Or even, within the same government but if there are changes or ministry shuffle, they can have some impact on the Australian migration law as well.

While offshore an Australian migration law practitioner does not need to hold a MARN, all onshore Australian migration law practitioner need to have a valid MARN. Otherwise, it is unlawful to give Australian migration law advice.

Therefore, whenever you engage someone for services, please check their business card, website and all marketing materials to ensure that they have a valid MARN. It is part of our code of conduct to make our MARN visible in all marketing material.

Once you know that you are dealing with a professional who has a MARN, more or less you are in good and competent hands.

Eligibility to be an approved business sponsor for visa subclass 457

While the Australian government has visa subclass 457 to address skill shortages in Australia. It needs to ensure that the business or employer who would like to sponsor the employees under visa subclass 457 has some certain qualities and meet some requirements set by the Australian government. That includes:

• The business or employer needs to be a "good employer". A good employer from the Australian government's perspective means that the employer provides jobs for local people; Australian Permanent Residence or Australian citizen.
• Apart from employ local people, the business needs to provide training for them as well. That is to up-skill and to ensure that they are more productive and more marketable. Just in case if one day business went down, at least those employees have enough skills to look for jobs so that they won't become government liabilities and become a burden to CentreLink.
• The business has financial viable. Simply put, it means the business is financially strong to employ more staff. For example, the market rate for a restaurant manager is around $55,000 (+ 9.50% super ) per year and so forth. It also depends on location of the restaurant. That is just an example. If the business cannot afford to pay at that rate, well...it is not financially viable to sponsor someone to work under visa subclass 457. In other words, the business bank statement needs to look pretty.

So, before any businesses want to jump onto the visa subclass 457 bandwagon, please ensure that you do a bit of checking first. Not all businesses or employers would get approved to sponsor some employees for visa subclass 457. Do a bit of research before you make any important decisions.

Employ and sponsor some employees under visa subclass 457, it is a big responsibility.

English language exemption for visa subclass 457

English language skill is part of the requirement for visa subclass 457. In order for visa subclass 457 to be granted, visa applicants need to demonstrate that they meet the English language requirement. In order to demonstrate that, visa applicants can sit for these tests; 

• IELTS; International English Language Testing Systems,
• OET; Occupational English Test,
• TOEFL iBT; Test of English as a Foreign Language internet-based test,
• PTE; Pearson Test of English, and
• CAE; Cambridge English Advanced

IELTS used to be the only test that was accepted by the Department of Immigration (DIBP), however, it is now accepted the results from more tests as mentioned above.

There are some exemptions if you are a passport holder from Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, UK and USA or you are in a certain salary range. This information can be easily found from the Department website. I will not mention it here. Instead, I would like to mention and explain about another English language exemption for visa subclass 457. The 5 years fulltime study and during these 5 years of fulltime study,  English language has been used to conduct the course.

I have a few enquiries on that, that is the reason that I wrote this blog.

Here are things that I would like to highlight about those 5 years full-time study requirement:

• It doesn't need to be continuously 5 years. It can accumulate.
• As we have lots of overseas students here in Australia, the time that you spend in college learning English, doesn't count. It needs to be a course that leads to some certification, not an English language course for overseas students.

I have to say that the English language requirement for visa subclass 457 has been relaxed a little bit compared to a few years ago. It shouldn't be too hard (just my opinion) to get the test score that the Department needs.

Good luck everyone.