Sandra

My husband and I have had our application for PR Skilled Migration in from April 5th 2001 (Non IT). The main applicant is my husband, my IT skills are not backed up with a degree. Recently I have been approached because of my IT skills and a company have been discussing a supported work permit to get me out there quicker. I would like to know what is involved in this and would it affect our main application. I am estimating that we will not hear about our main application until August/September time given the 15 months waiting times.

Many thanks for any help.

Jaj

It shouldn't affect your PR application at all. You would need to keep (presumably)
London informed of your movements, give them a reliable contact address and go to
Singapore or New Zealand to be actually granted your PR visa.

If you apply for a 457 visa (work permit) you should also declare your PR
application. As you're from a Western country with skills you should be able to
get this visa even though you have applied for PR. In fact many Australian
overseas missions are enouraging PR applicants to go down the work permit route
while they wait.

Jeremy

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Sandra

Many thanks Jeremy for your prompt response - now for the silly question. How long would we have to leave the country for. A holiday in NZ would be lovely but how do they arrange to send the visas to you, or do you just have to get sent the visa at your residence in Aus and then leave and re-enter to ensure they are stamped? Yes we are applying through the London Office, residents in the UK.

If our PR was refused (our daughter is partially deaf) could we stay on with my temporary one and appeal from Australia. At least we might have the time to prove she is fully capable of main stream school and is not registered disabled.

Thanks again for any help.

Jaj

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My understanding of how it works is that once you get your temporary visa, you write
to your case officer in London saying that you are planning to travel in Australia,
and would eventually like to collect your visa in New Zealand (I'm assuming you're
headed for the east coast of Australia, Singapore is closer to the west coast than
Auckland).

You will need to make sure your case officer has a contact address for you in
Australia at all times.

When your case officer is ready to grant you a visa, you get informed (usually by
letter) and then make your trip to NZ. You would be granted the visa formally once
outside Australia, and you would get the visa label put in your passports there (all
family members would need to go there).

It needs a bit of co-ordination between London and Auckland, but I imagine they're
pretty used to it - you won't be the first ones to do this.

The amount of time needed for this process is - according to some other accounts I've
heard - up to 5 days. But it's not something I've done myself, so can't give more
information.

Once you return to Australia, you would become permanent residents and your temporary
visas would be superseded.

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Offshore skilled independent applications can't be reviewed by the MRT, even if
you're in Australia on another visa.

You may want to have a look at the MRT cases database to see if any similar cases
have come up in the last few years.

Factsheet 22 gives a guide to Australia's policy, if that's any help:
http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/22health.htm

Jeremy