Australian Visa - Update 5 ‘State Sponsored Visa’
Friday, June 5th, 2009
Andrew passed his Practical Assessment in Carpentry back in April (phew!). It was quite a thorough and demanding assessment needing preparation beforehand to dig out the years of skills from the back of his brain, make sure he had the right and adequate tools, equipment and Health & Safety gear, not to mention getting lunch and parking sorted.Unfortunately he still 5 points short of the Australian Skilled Independent Visa requirements so must either sit an IELTS English test, apply for State sponsored visas or Anne must also obtain a skills assessment.
We decided to opt for hopefully the least complex and speediest i.e. State Sponsorship (English test apparently is quite hard & even the cleverest English people have failed and for Anne to applying for a skills assessment is quite lengthy and complex).
The main difference between Skilled Independent and State Sponsored is that with the latter, this means we must live for two years in the state that sponsors us.
After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to apply for sponsorship in state of Western Australia so wish us luck!
Throughout the process (started back in August last year), we have been using the Australian consultancy firm ‘Go Matilda’ and in terms of costs for the whole process to date, please see as follows:
£317.25 GBP / $ 634.00 AUD Stage 1 - Initial Assessment
£846.00 GBP / $1692.00 AUD Stage 1 - Paper Assessment
£300.00 GBP / $ 600.00 AUD Stage 2 - Competency Assessment
£750.00 GBP / $1500.00 AUD Stage 2 - Practical Assessment
£517.50 GBP / $1035.00 AUD Stage 3 - Visa Application Assistance (50%)
£310.50 GBP / $ 621.00 AUD Stage 3- State Government Assistance
£ 30.00 GBP / $ 60.00 AUD Solicitor fees for certified documentation
£3,071.25 GBP / $6142.50 AUD Total spend so far
09.06.09 - forgot to add costs of photos for all of us @ £25 and Statutory Declaration £28.75 - another £53.75 in total to provide a grand spend of £3,125 / $6,250
