If you're new here, you may be interested to know that you can receive all of our latest articles directly to your inbox. Click Here for more info. We promise to keep your email safe and will use it for only this purpose

On 14 November 2008 the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Senator Chris Evans, released the report of the Visa Subclass 457 Integrity Review conducted by industrial relations expert Barbara Deegan.

The Temporary Business (Subclass 457) Visa is the most commonly used program for employers to sponsor overseas workers to work in Australia from a period of between 3 months to 4 years, however in the past the visa class has frequently being used to exploit ‘cheap labour’.

The report attempts to address concerns in three areas:

Minimum Salary Level and Labour Agreements

English Language Requirement and Occupational Health and Safety

Integrity and Exploitation

You can check out the full reports by clicking here (link opens in a new window)

Article Popularity: 14%

For those migrants who call Australia home, becoming an Australian Citizen is something that many aspire to.

As well as being able to call yourself a real Aussie, for migrants there’s also the added benefit of being able to come and go as you please without having to reapply for entry into Australia after the initial period allocated by your Visa class has elapsed.

Since October 2007, a ‘citizenship test’ has had to be taken as part of the process to gain Australian citizenship and the questions within the test have had raised quite a few eye brows ever since it’s release.

Many of the questions were of a very General nature and some people taking the test weren’t particularly enamoured by the fact that certain questions could influence their chances of becoming an Australian.

A couple of the questions that spring to mind include such classics as: Continue Reading

Article Popularity: 10%

Where do I start is one of the most common questions asked by many of those looking to start a new life down under.

The answer to this question is usually decide which Visa option you’ll utilise to get yourself here, however there are so many visa options available for wannabee Aussies that deciding which one is the most suitable is often one of the trickiest parts of the whole process.

The process may now be a slightly more straight forward one as the Australian Department of Immigration has introduced a new tool to help guide users through the tricky process of choosing the most appropriate visa path.

The “Visa Wizard” is designed to help you find the Australian visa most likely to meet your specific circumstances and having had a play around with the wizard this morning it appears to be a pretty useful and user friendly tool Continue Reading

Article Popularity: 19%