Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Flights Booked

With our visa granted we were eager to begin the move, and start our new life in Australia. We went ahead and booked our  flight today, and will officially be touching down in Sydney on January 19th, 2011. Let the packing begin.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

We got the Visa!!

After  2 long years, we finally received our Australia Skilled Migration Visa. We knew that there was movement on the processing front, because lots of other people who were in Priority 2, had started to receive their case officers. We were a little disappointed at first because we hadn't heard back, but then all of a sudden, I logged into the online system, and it showed my visa had been approved. I'm still in shock and can't believe it's finally here.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Positive SMP News

With the release of the long awaited State Migration plan for the Australian Capital Territory on Monday we are happy to find out that my occupation is on the list. This means our application has officially been moved from Priority 3 to Priority 2. We are now eagerly awaiting the assignment of a Case Officer!

Here is the information on the ACT website regarding their State Migration Plan (SMP) :

http://www.business.act.gov.au/skilled_and_business_migration/SMP_Occupation_List

DIAC State Migration Plans

The Department of Immigration & Citizenship has announced the commencement of the long awaited State Migration Plans. Currently only 2 states have announced their plan, and the rest are expected in the next 2 months:



State Date
Australian Capital Territory 5 November 2010
New South Wales TBA
Northern Territory TBA
Queensland TBA
South Australia TBA
Tasmania TBA
Victoria 3 November 2010
Western Australia TBA


They also released 2 accompanying PDFs:

FACT SHEET - http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/statmig-fs.pdf

FAQ - http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/statmig-faq.pdf