You apply for the temporary and the permanent partner visas together. Under the current requirements, partner visa and sponsorship applications can be lodged and assessed by the Department concurrently. Usually, you must hold a Partner visa ( subclass 8) or Dependent Child visa ( subclass 4). See the subclass 8visa for more information on married and de facto applicants. You must usually continue to be sponsored.
Sponsors do need to be ‘approved’ and in being ‘approved’ they have to satisfy the sponsorship requirements but this is not a decision that is taken separate to the visa application. So guess what readers? Taking the time to actually read the legislation and the explanatory notes and analyse how they will work pays off. This post is deliberately late because I didn’t want to be like every other migration agent out there writing a blog post scaring everyone into buying their services. See full list on partnervisaguide.
A whole heap of changes were made to the Migration Act and the amendments were to the Family Migration Programme of which partner visas are a part of. The key to the Family Migration Programme is the concept of ‘sponsorship’. All family member visas are sponsored whether they’re tourists, parents or in our case partners and spouses.
So the amendments were made to the requirements of sponsorship, namely around the sponsorship undertakings. Under the new sponsorship requirements, the sponsor must provide evidence that they will be and can be responsible for the visa applicant’s financial and accommodation needs. But if you dig deeper into the legislation and see what they have amended and said in regards to the sponsorship undertaking for partner visas, there is no separate sponsorship approval process. In fact the sponsorship undertaking is considered dealt with when you tick the boxes in the application form that says ‘I agree to be responsible for my partner’s fi. The effect of this is that now the sponsor can be a reason for refusal of the visa, not just the applicant.
It means that if the sponsor doesn’t fulfil the requirements of being a sponsor, the visa can be refused. Before these changes, the sponsor wasn’t looked at. With these changes, the sponsor has to undergo police checks if requeste and if the sponsor cannot provide for the financial and accommodation needs of the visa applicant for at least years after the grant of the visa, then that may be a reason to refuse the partner visa. These changes have been made as an increasing response to combat family violence.
This also makes sense in the context of parent visas or other family visas. If the adult children do not have the means to provide for their ageing parent, then the sponsorship undertaking has not been satisfied and therefore there is no need to consider the rest of the visa application. The case officer has made a decision that the sponsor is not eligible to sponsor and then will refuse the visa application based on that. This is what many migration agents have interpreted to mean a ‘separate approval process’ when in reality it just makes the sponsorship part of the application, the first to be looked at by the case officer.
It merely changes the order in which the case officer looks at a partner visa application. Going forwar the case officer will increasingly look at the eligibility of the sponsor to sponsor a foreign partner. This is not a separate application that needs to be made but merely a decision that the case officer must make before they proceed to process the rest of the visa application.
It is more like a change in the procedure for case officers and they now need to ask the following question: 1. Is the sponsor eligible to sponsor? If no, refuse the visa. I would say still try to get your applications in before June because we all know that price hikes happen around then. But in terms of these new sponsorship requirements, I wouldn’t be worrying too much about having to undergo a separate approval process because it doesn’t exist. My suggestion is to continue in an orderly fashion and don’t get scammed by migration agents who are pressuring you and scaring you into working with them.
Your spouse may sponsor you for a period of two years. After this, if the relationship is still genuine and continuing, you may be. You should meet the skills, requirements and English language ability for applying for the visa. Getting this visa is the first step towards a permanent Partner visa (subclass 801). Fiancé Relationships.
This relationship is defined in which you are engaged to be married or betrothed. IN THIS VIDEO I TALK ABOUT SPOUSE VISA. This is not a try-before-you-buy visa.
Australia Family and Spouse Visa – FAQ’s.