New Priority Processing - Bad News for Us

Wow... what a day. We received some pretty awful news today. DIAC have just announced a new Priority Processing system, which changes the processing order of all applicants. The new system will give priority to those people who are in and in demand profession on the Critical Skills List (CSL) and those with State Sponsorship (SS). There are now 7 levels of priority:

1. Applications from people who are employer sponsored under the ENS and the RSMS.
2. Applications from people who are nominated by a State/Territory government and whose nominated occupation is listed on the Critical Skills List (CSL).
3. Applications from people who are sponsored by family and whose nominated occupation is listed on the CSL.
4. Applications from people who are neither nominated nor sponsored but whose nominated occupation is listed on the CSL.
5. Applications from people who are nominated by a State/Territory government whose nominated occupation is not listed on the CSL
6. (i) Applications from people whose occupations are listed on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL). and
   (ii) Applications from people who are sponsored by family and whose nominated occupation is not listed on the CSL.
7. All other applications are to be processed in the order in which they are received.

Guess which one we now fall into? Priority 7! The lowest of all. To make matters worse, they have announced that those applications that fall into Priority 7 will not be looked at until 2012. yes, you read that right.... 2012.... at the earliest!!! This has to be the worst news we have received this year. When we applied it was expected that our application may be complete just 3 months from now. This has affected an awful lot of people, and we have all had our hopes and dreams dashed.