Under the government’s recent visa reforms, a new Ministerial Direction 117 has changed the processing priorities for family visas. Who will benefit from these changes, and whose wait may become longer? SBS Urdu spoke in detail with Abdul Naeem Qazi, a registered migration agent with 15 years of experience, about this important issue.
According to Abdul Naeem Qazi, Ministerial Direction 117 specifically relates to family visas and only affects applicants whose sponsors are Australian citizens, permanent residents or eligible New Zealand citizens. It will not affect students or other temporary visa holders.
He explained that under the new direction, the highest priority will be given to cases where an application for ministerial intervention has been made following a visa refusal. This will be followed by Partner and Dependent Child visas, then Orphan Relative, Contributory Parent and Aged Parent visas, followed by Carer visas, and finally the standard Parent visa category.
He also explained that within this order, applicants who are in Australia will be given priority over those applying from outside Australia, or those who are required to be outside Australia when their visa is granted. For example, in the Partner visa category, subclass 820 and 801 applications will be prioritised over subclasses 309 and 100.
However, he clarified that this does not mean offshore applications will stop being processed until all onshore cases are completed. Instead, under the allocations set at the beginning of each financial year, a parallel processing arrangement is maintained for both onshore and offshore applications.
