lucilletwo

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone who has perhaps been keeping an eye on the South Australia Lists of State Nominated Occupations for longer than me could offer some insight into whether there's any hope for my husband and me.
Our background is this - husband has 7 years' experience as an ICT Customer Support Officer (ANZSCO 313112), relevant Bachelors degree, and we are UK citizens (therefore classed as 'Competent English' for migration purposes). Back in May we decided to start the process of getting a Migration Skills Assessment through TRA so that he could apply for visa 489. In August he received a positive outcome for this and started the process of lodging an EOI and applying through the Migration SA website. As he was getting everything together for this second part of the process, Migration SA closed applications for the 489 visa (14th August). This was a setback but, knowing that the 491 visa would open on November 16th and that his points were on the lower end of the minimum required, he decided to take an IELTS exam in the meantime to get an extra 20 points and boost his application when the 491 opened. He got an overall score of 9 on his IELTS (unsurprisingly - he's a native English speaker!) so we were all set.

Unfortunately, looking at the SA State Nominated Occupation Lists I see that his occupation, despite listed as having good availability for nominations, now has the condition 'Only available to applicants currently residing in South Australia' attached. Which brings me to my question - is this something that changes frequently? Is it a condition that, perhaps, gets added temporarily and may be removed once they open up applications for the 491 (SA website says this will be first week of December)?

I know this might be a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question but I'm getting a bit disheartened here as we've already spent a fair bit of time, effort, and money on getting application-ready. Other states either don't consider his occupation at all or require him to have a job offer which he's highly unlikely to get when he's not already in the country. Plus we had really started to get excited about SA in particular. Any insights would be much appreciated!

Dorothy

Is there a reason why you're applying for the 491? What's your points breakdown now without the SA sponsorship?

lucilletwo

His nominated occupation isn't on the Skilled Independent (189) list so there's not really an option without state sponsorship, but his points breakdown is

Age 36 = 25 points
English language (Superior) = 20 points
7 years work experience outside Australia = 10 points
Bachelors degree = 15 points
Partner skills (Competent English) = 5 points
Total without sponsorship = 75 points
Total with sponsorship = 90 points

Dorothy

Have you done your skills assessment yet? You can't claim partner points unless you both have positive assessments on the same list.

If it were me, I would apply for an independent visa without the need for state sponsorship. SA is not widely known for IT, so it would be better (IMO) to not be obliged to live there if you can't find work.

old.sparkles

What about the 190 visa? Are there any states sponsoring that you can meet the criteria for this visa? It's PR from the start.

Not sure if it's on SA's list or not, or what their criteria is but may be worth a look.

lucilletwo

His occupation isn't on the list for the Skilled Independent Visa otherwise we definitely would apply for that.

We can claim 5 points for me having Competent English, this is separate from the requirement for me also having a skills assessment (plus Competent English and being under 45) which would give us 10 points.

lucilletwo

Unfortunately it's much the same for the 190 - have to be currently living in SA. Other states don't have his occupation on the 190 list or require that he already has a job offer to get the visa.