ACT State Sponsorship - Canberra

State Sponsorship is where a State in Australia will sponsor people in particular profession for migration. There is a requirement though that you commit to living and working in that state for your first 2 years. Following this, you are free to move around. This new visa would be the subclass 176. Our current application is for the subclass 175 visa. If we are approved by a State then our application will be switched from one to the other.

Looking at the various States in Australia, we have found that the only state accepting my skill at the minute is the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). ACT is where Canberra is located. Canberra is the capital of Australia. Wait... "Sydney is the capital" I hear you scream.... no.. believe it or not, Sydney is not the capital.

Anyway, now we have to go through the process of applying for state sponsorship, which will mean we will be living in the Australian capital, Canberra, for 2 years. Basically, we apply for the sponsorship, and once approved we will move up in the Priority listing to number 5. We then have to wait for DIAC to process our application.

Hope!

After further evaluation of the new changes to the Australia Skilled Migration Visa processing, we have found a way to move up the processing priority mentioned in my previous post. By applying for State Sponsorship, our application will be moved into Priority 5. This should speed things up a little bit for us. Hopefully before 2012.

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.

Preparations Pay Off

Well,  just 2 days after getting my positive skills assessment, we were able to lodge our application with the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). Whilst waiting for the ACS to get back to us, we had diligently prepared all documents that would be required for our visa application.

We decided to retain the services of Peter Chiam as our migration agent for the visa application, to guide us and keep everything on track. So far, one of the best investments we have made in the process. Whilst many people do all the paperwork themselves, we used an agent for peace of mind. We wanted to make sure everything was submitted right the first time. We didn't want to go through the process again.

Currently the anticipated wait time is 9 -12 months because we are from a low risk country. Fingers crossed, we will be celebrating Christmas on the beaches of Australia.

Good News Arrived

We received some excellent news today. After almost 3 months of waiting, we received a positive skills assessment from the Australian Computer Society. We are so excited. This now means we can submit our application for Skilled Migration visa, subclass 175. This visa will allow us to gain Permanent Residency in Australia, and not require us to have a job lined up before we move.

The Process Begins

Upon our return from our 2006 vacation to Australia, we studied our options for migration. At that time we focused primarily on their Skilled Migration Program. This would give us Permanent Residency right away, and we wouldn't be required to have a job lined up in order to make the move. Australia has a points system, where you get points for age, occupation, experience and English language ability, amongst other things. A total of 120 points was needed. With Anna holding 2 Masters degrees in Education and Counseling we thought that we would have not trouble meeting their requirements. Unfortunately, we soon found at that Anna's profession, School Counselor, was no on the Australian Skills in Demand  list (SOL). In fact, her profession wasn't even recognized over there. The role of Counselors within the Australian school system were as rare as a Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat.

Our hopes were temporarily dashed. We had one more approach, and that was to have my skills assessed as a Computer Programmer. After consultation with a migration agent, we discovered that I was lacking in work experience, and needed to wait a while longer before we could apply.

Fast forward to August 2008.... I finally had gathered enough work experience, and had also been studying for an Australian Degree online from RMIT. Now the process could really begin.

The first stage of most migration applications under the Skilled Migration program is the Skills Assessment. Without this, you would not be able to submit you visa application. The Skills Assessment was to be done through the Australian Computer Society (ACS), and seemed to be an arduous process. Due to not having an IT Degree, I needed to complete what is know as Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). I felt quite overwhelmed as an extensive description of my work experience and skills needed to be complete. I had heard of people submitting 30,000 word applications to meet the ACS Core Body of Knowledge (CBOK) requirements.

Feeling the need for extra support, I hired an Australian Migration Agent, Peter Chiam who specializes in assisting clients with the RPL process. Peter was fantastic and guided me through the process, tackling each area of the CBOK one at a time. After about one month of work, I had completed my application, and submitted it to the Australian Computer Society for assessment.