That’s why.
Good on you.
Visa Grant Delay 189
Congratulations…were you guys asked to redo your medicals and pcc again?
Frankly, they should be more transparent.
Yes…right
one thing seems pretty clear that, healthcare professions irrespective of onshore/offshore will get grants in reasonable time. other professions in offshore are almost 0 movement. hope it changes this situation soon…
Hey @Jagroop1987 Great to hear about your CO Contact. May I know if you have any CO contacts before as well? Did you apply as a single applicant or have dependents as well? I’m also a RN-Offshore (Critical care & emergency) lodged in March, 2020. Seeing your timeline, it seems I have to wait for a full year before any movement. It scares me tbh. lol
Even for onshore its the same.
Nil. Direct grant.
Ok, the department finally replied, with a refusal to supply the requested documents on the basis that I can pay to access them through LEGENDcom. But, they did rather kindly inform me exactly what to look for, so fine, whatever, I paid for it. A MARA agent is permitted to reproduce it to give you direct advice, but I can’t because it’s covered by copyright and a terms of use prohibiting disclosure. So, talk to your friendly local MARA agent and ask about direction no 87, issued 1st September 2020.
Direction 86, which was mentioned earlier in this thread, is actually revoked (in the opening paragraphs of this direction).
What I can probably say though, is that 189 Visas under the Points Tested stream are priority j, critical sectors are priority b. 188 Visas are priority a. 190 Visas are priority i. For the 189 Visa, onshore applications are not prioritised.
The 189 New Zealand stream is not included in the direction, so I guess that means it’s after all of the other visa categories.
Thanks for the efforts, but where to get the document, where the directions are listed down. And is this something sensitive document that is not available for every individual…
Its my first CO contact and i m married…we both as a couple are offshore…
As I said… it’s in LEGENDcom which is a paid subscription service from the department. Because it’s available to buy, the department is not required to give it out under FOI. So, you can give the department $800 to subscribe if you want to read it personally, or ask a MARA agent. Individuals with a subscription are not allowed to share the contents with others under the membership terms, but MARA agents are.
So, to directly answer your question where to get the document you either give the department $800 to let you read it, you ask a MARA agent to show it to you, or you don’t. Those are your options. You may also be able to go to a State Library (not a regular city council library, the State Library in your Australian state capital) and access it.
Ok got your point. Thanks for the insight and detailed answer. Hope they do process the backlog and clear it sooner to reduce on most of us…
Ohkay. Thanks for your quick response. I think you will be granted straight away after you redo pcc/medicals 
Wish you luck. Keep us posted buddy!
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Greatly appreciated you have shared this information and your effort.
Interesting you made this request and they asked you for an extension, that was because they halted everything and there was no such document
The priority levels you just provided I should assume goes in alphabetical order?
Visa 189 is J and 190 is i…So, we are 10 in the queue out of how many categories?..because if they’re 11 altogether it doesn’t sound great.
It feels like this document prompted some of these new CO contact and new grants.
I hope this leads to the resumption of visa processing.
No, they didn’t ask for an extension because nothing existed. Prior to ministerial direction 87, there was a ministerial direction 86 (mentioned earlier, by you I think) which would have met the criteria of what I asked. Because there is so much going on, and so many people asking questions of them, anything apart from a simple statistical export takes a very long time as they ask a lot of people to dig through what they have, determine whether it’s publicly available, determine whether it’s disclosable… I’m not surprised it took this long - I’ve worked in government and know just how awful the process is!
It was blind luck that direction 87 was issued in time for them to be able to point it out to me. This does not indicate a “resumption of visa processing” because it never stopped, it just… slowed. Dramatically. Most case officers will be assigned to processing those applications for “Can I fly to the UK?” and so forth.
As to your other question, yes, it’s alphabetical order. And yes, the alphabetical list is A-K, you are in fact second last in priority order. I’m not even in the list at all, which I assume means for me processing actually has stopped.
Just to make clear though, this only covers applications in “Received” state. Applications already being processed are not covered by this direction.
I’ll be blunt - the list goes like this: (188) Significant Investor/Global Talent/Employer Sponsored PMSOL, (ANY) Critical Sectors, Regional Sponsored/Employer Sponsored in Designated Priority Area, (494) Employer Sponsored Regional, (491) Skilled Regional, Employer Sponsored, (187) Regional Sponsored, (489) Skilled Regional, (190) Skilled Nominated, (189) Skilled Independent Points Tested, Everything Else. The third to seventh items prioritise onshore over offshore. And if caps apply, they start capping from number 11 backwards, which means you’ll be in the capped segment pretty quickly.
Thank you.
Yes, I brought up the Direction 86, but what I meant by such document didn’t exist was there was no reason for slowing down other than to reduce the number of visa grants, there is no document where this speed processing reduction can be based on. This is what we were trying to get clear.
It’s clear now that this is the same thing they did last year with new regional visas.
We wondered why some new visa applications were processed and granted before older ones.
You just said this processing order applies to received applications, so just wonder what rules apply to the ones being processed? This is a grey area.
What I meant to say was resumption to normal processing pace. We understand they slowed down to work out what was best plus the other new process implemented for citizen who need to get a permit to travel overseas, however, tourists visas, students visa and some other categories have gone down dramatically which allow them to balance out a bit more the work allocation.
We noticed now they are looking at old cases in priority occupations that were left forgotten and are now aged over 12 months. This is why It feels like they are now increasing the processing number of applications. This may also be beneficial for other categories that haven’t been included in this new direction.
The budget is due in October as well, so they may be ready to reactive everything as per new planning levels and covid economy prospect.
It is not a grey area. The priority processing only applies to case load management. Once the case is picked up, it’s processed as per normal regardless of what type it is, unless there’s a cap and queue or cap and cease in effect for the visa type. The problem is being picked up in the first place.
Yes, and this is really mystery for anyone as to know whether the case is already picked or not. Dept could have been little bit transparent and tell as what status the case is, will definitely let us sit back with little bit peace… unfortunately that’s not happening and all our thoughts are like throwing arrows in dark…
Got it.
Some cases have been already contacted and provided documents and got frozen for months again. This is the timeframe I’m referring to. What is the timeframe?
You see in the timetracker cases like this. This has happened this year and previous one as well. This is the timeframe that’s unclear to me. Why two CO contact 1 year apart from each other in some cases when documents requested were provided in timely manner?