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When migrating to Australia your country of Origin can have a significant impact on the speed in which your Visa application is processed. The Australian Department of immigration classify certain countries as either a low risk or high risk country.
If your country is a high risk country then it’s nothing to be offended about. The factors which make your country of origin a low or high risk country are not really understood either.
As the Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) Visa list is utilised It’s been suggested that high risk countries are those whose citizens have an historic high rate of visa over staying in Australia, whilst low risk countries are those countries whose citizens are good boys and girls and normally leave before their visas have expired.
If your country falls into the high risk category then additional checks will be undertaken prior to your visa being approved and different service levels are applied by the department for the time to process your application.
Trawling through our forums I see that folks often struggle to ascertain whether or not their country of origin is classed as a high or low risk country. Finding the answer to this question is a little easier then you might have thought.
In the eyes of the Australian Immigration department Low risk countries are ETA eligible. High risk countries are those not on the ETA list.
At time of typing the current low risk countries are:
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong SAR
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
San Marino
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States Of America
Vatican City
If your country isn’t listed here then it means your living in a high risk country i’m afraid. To be absolutely sure though I’d suggest that you check the ETA site for the most current list.
You see. not that hard is it 
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Creo que Marcos tiene razón, trabajadores de paises nuevos dentro de la Union europea como rumania o Polonia, tienen trabas para trabajar dentro de la Union; por esa regla de tres no me extrañarÃa que también estuvieran en la categorÃa de alto riesgo. Ya que hasta dentro de la Union europea se los considera asi.
WLL COUNTRIES FORM EUROPEAN UNION ARE DETERMINED AS”LOW RISK”.YOU DO NOT HAVE CURRENT INFORMATIONS.POLAND,LATVIA,ESTONIA AND OTHERS ARE “LOW RISK”.Zibi.
Zibi, these countries aren’t necessarily going to be classed as low risk just because they are part of the European Union.
I think some of the countries you have mentioned are deemed high risk. Best bet would be to check the website link in the post above.
Cheers
Mark
Just to update you. From 27 October 2008 all EU countries (including Latvia, Poland etc;) plus other European ETA countries were placed on the E-visitor programme in place of the ETA scheme (which by the way means you’ll no longer find the UK or any other European country on the ETA list).
The E-visitor list plus the ETA list are the low risk countries. I don’t think there is any real difference between the ETA and the E-visitor except that the latter is free of charge (part of a reciprocal agreement between the EU and Australia) so none of the countries listed by zibi2907 are considered high risk any more and that is just because they are members of the EU!
Thanks very much for the update Ken
i think this is called recissiom.