VISA UPDATE: Subclass 400 Visa (short term work visa)

You can apply for this visa if you need to enter Australia to undertake one of the following activities:


Highly specialised work

You can apply for this visa to do short-term, highly specialised, non-ongoing work in Australia if you have specialised skills, knowledge or experience that both:

• can assist an Australian business
• cannot reasonably be found in the Australian labour market.
  Highly specialised work is usually work that either:
• is done by people with an occupation listed in Major Groups 1, 2 or 3 of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO),
  or
• requires skills and knowledge that are specific to an international company, such as installing imported equipment, after-sales service or emergency repairs

Invited participants

You can apply for this visa if you have been invited by an organisation to participate in a cultural or social event or events on a non-ongoing basis.

The inviting organisation must be both:

• operating lawfully in Australia
• directly responsible for the event or have a formal role in preparing for or conducting it.
• You cannot accept any salary, wages or other remuneration for participating in the event, other than:
• prize money
• appearance fees
• reimbursement for your reasonable expenses of doing the activity
• payments from your non-Australian employer.

You can apply for this visa if you are, for example, a sportsperson participating in specific events or touring as part of a sports team, a public lecturer, an artist, an author or a photographer.

This visa is not intended for business people attending a conference or taking part in meetings or business negotiations. You can apply for a Visitor visa (subclass 600)-Business Visitor stream instead (such as Visitor visa (subclass 600). 

Emergency Workers and Other Exceptional Circumstances

In very limited circumstances, this visa may be granted in Australia’s interest. In these cases, the department needs to be satisfied that the activity identified in the visa application is of national significance.

For example, this visa could be granted to emergency workers to come to Australia after a natural disaster.

NOTE: Your work or activity must be non-ongoing. This means that you can finish the work and activity in three months or less. Do not make arrangements to stay in Australia any longer than that. You also should not agree to being rotated through a position on a short-term basis as one of a number of overseas workers. If the work is ongoing, and even if your contract is less than three months, apply for a Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457).

Generally you can stay in Australia for up to three months where required, but depending on your work or activity a longer period of up to six months may be allowed in limited circumstances.

 

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457 Visa changes - visa condition 8107

Migration Legislation Amendment (2016 Measures No. 4) Regulation 2016 amends a number of provisions of the Migration Regulations 1994 as listed below:

Schedule 1 - Visa Condition 8107

• This Schedule reduces the time period that a Subclass 457 (Temporary Work (Skilled) visa holder can remain in Australia after ceasing employment with their current sponsor from 90 days to 60 days


•  If 457 holder has not found a new sponsor within 60 days of ceasing that employment, they will be in breach of their visa condition 8107 and their visa may be cancelled.


• This amendment applies to 457 visas granted on or after 19 November 2016.

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Working Holiday Visa - Definitions of "Specified Work"

The Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton has specified (by way of Legislative Instrument, 5 May 2016) what ‘specified work’ will satisfy the Working Holiday visa ‘regional work’ requirements, as follows:-

(i) plant and animal cultivation:

A. the harvesting and/or packing of fruit and vegetable crops;

B. pruning and trimming vines and trees;

C. general maintenance crop work;

D. cultivating or propagating plants, fungi or their products or parts;

E. immediate processing of plant products;

F. maintaining animals for the purposes of selling them or their bodily produce, including natural increase;

G. immediate processing of animal products including shearing, butchery, packing and tanning;

H. manufacturing dairy produce from raw material.

(ii) fishing and pearling:

A. conducting operations relating directly to taking or catching fish and other aquatic species;

B. conducting operations relating directly to taking or culturing pearls or pearl shell.

(iii) tree farming and felling:

A. planting or tending trees in a plantation or forest that are intended to be felled;

B. felling trees in a plantation or forest;

C. transporting trees or parts of trees that were felled in a plantation or forest to the place where they are first to be milled or processed or form which they are to be transported to the place where they are to be milled or processed.

(iv) mining:

A. coal mining;

B. oil and gas extraction;

C. metal ore mining;

D. construction material mining;

E. other non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying;

F. exploration;

G. mining support services.

(v) construction:

A. residential building construction;

B. non-residential building construction;

C. heavy and civil engineering construction;

D. land development and site preparation services;

E. building structure services;

F. building installation services;

G. building completion services;

H. other construction services.

Nevett Ford Lawyers can assist with all visa related matters.

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