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Foreign students will face greater screening as the Government cracks down on visa fraud and scrutinises their ability to finance life in Australia reports the Age

The changes, announced by Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday, apply to students from India, Mauritius, Nepal, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Pakistan and take effect immediately.

Students from target countries will be subject to more stringent interviews and have limited access to visa applications online.

Applications for student visas have soared in the past year. They grew by 20 per cent to more than 362,000 in the year to June 30. Of those, 28,000 applications were rejected. Continue Reading

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Getting your SOL’s mixed up with your MODL’s?  Alan Collette at Go Matilda  has written a  a great article  summarising  the myriad of occupations lists currently doing the rounds.

The Skilled Occupations List, or SOL

The SOL is a threshold list of skilled occupations – if your occupation is not on this list you do not meet one of the basic requirements of a skilled visa application, and as such cannot migrate to Australia under the general skilled program.

This list does not vary very often, but with a reclassification of skilled occupations having taken place in Australia in the last few months there is an expectation that the SOL will be subject to fairly significant amendment within the next year => as ever, if you are an intending migrant and you have an occupation that appears on the SOL as presently constituted it would be prudent to lodge your application sooner rather than later, just in case your occupation is omitted from a new SOL. Continue Reading

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A member of parliament for the ruling Labor Party on Friday called for Australia’s immigration quotas to be cut in light of the threat from homegrown Islamic terrorists. That threat was exemplified last week when five men were charged over an alleged plot to storm an army base in Sydney.

Kelvin Thomson rational for the cut was that fewer migrants would mean more stringent background checks on applicants could be carried out.

He said Islamists were entering Australia through official immigration channels stating that this was “a far more serious issue than the prospect of us being attacked by another country”.

Hmmm, sounds like an interesting character this Kevin Thomson chap and I really don’t think he quite ‘gets it’. The current checks and as many of us who have been through the process can testify are more than rigorous enough. Continue Reading

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Australian employers unexpectedly added 32,200 workers in July, bucking expectations that the jobless rate would continue to rise.

In positive news for both Australian residents and skilled workers looking to emigrate to Australia, the country’s unemployment rate remained at 5.8 per cent for July, despite economists predicting that the seasonally adjusted rate would reach at least 6 per cent.

Part-time employment increased 48,200 to 3.203 million, while full-time jobs dropped by 16,000 to 7.590 million, apparently a reflection of employers cutting hours rather than positions. Continue Reading

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