shaneharman

Ok here goes I am slighly confused by the whole situation so need somekind of guidiance. My girlfriend has previously had a 12 month work visa however she only stayed in Oz for 7 months, of which she worked for 3 months in a cafe. We are currently looking at moving to Australia but aint sure if this is still possible as she has already had a work visa. What visa would she need ?
Since her last trip to Oz she is also a qualified Hairdresser. I am a qualified Architectural Technician and ex services so am hoping that I will be able to find work if i choose to get a 12 month work visa.

Can anyone help, what would be the best avenue to take on her applying to work in Oz again.

Many Thanks

SH

louise

Hi

www.immi.gov.au should be able to get you started

Good luck

Bermudashorts

Hi SH, welcome to BE.

Ok so first of all it would be better to stop talking about a "work visa" because none of the visas are actaully called the "work visa" and so there could be a lot of confusion about what visa you are talking about and you could either get wrong advice or can waste time clarifying. So it makes sense to use the proper name for the visa.

I am going to take a punt that you mean a working holiday visa when you say "work visa". If your girlfriend has already had this and only worked in a cafe for 3 months, then she is not going to qualify for another WHV.

Are you just hoping to go to Australia for a year? If so, then if you are under 30 and have not had a WHV before then maybe you can get one of these and your girlfriend can get a tourist visa, but she would not be able to work of course.

shaneharman

Well we are actually looking at moving over to Oz for good so was looking into the Long Stay Business Visa 457 ? Does this ring any bells ? I dont get how it all works if you apply for a 457 then do u need to have a job waiting for you before you step foot in Oz or does the visa allow you to enter the country and then find work ? Ideally this is what we were planning on doing if we could ?

Pollyana

If you are looking at a 457 you need to find a sponsor first, before you move. Have a look at http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/
This isn't a permanent visa though, so if you wish to move to Australia for good you will need a plan for when the 457 expires.

Bermudashorts

Does it ring bells? Err yes because that is the proper name of a visa and a pretty common one at that. Whereas, it was not clear what you meant by "work visa", as many visas enable one to work and none are called “work visa”.. hence my earlier point.

Anyhoo no you cannot apply for a 457 and then go to Australia to look for work. For a 457 you have to have the job offer first and then the company and yourself make an application for the visa as a joint effort.

As you do not have a job offer at the moment your options are probably:

- look into skilled migration, search for 175 or 176 visas on the website you were referred to earlier. This can be quite a time consuming process and it can take anything from a few months to a few years to get the visa
- go over on a WHV (you) and tourist visa (OH) and try to secure employer sponsorship whilst there
- check out the job sites and try to secure sponsorship from UK (probably the most appealing on paper but in practice very, very difficult)