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Yesterday we talked about the new trend in Student-visa processing:The hottest “new” trend in Australian visa processing — applicants are being asked for additional documents more often this past six months, and may even face phone interviews. Heads-up on the landmines ahead!Today let’s talk about a piece of news concerning temporary visas — a lot of people have been asking, so we’ll walk through what’s actually going on. First, this is a clear legislative change that grants the Minister discretionary power: even if you already hold an Australian temporary visa, the Minister has the authority to refuse entry.

The Minister’s newly added discretionary power

In short — no need to panic:the impact on Chinese applicants is limited. The broader context of this legislation is closely tied to recent headline news —primarily a bill the government initiated and fast-tracked in response to the unrest in the Middle East.

This bill grantsthe Minister for Immigration a new power: within a defined period of up to six months, the Minister may issue directions that prevent temporary-visa holders from entering Australia. The legislation is aimed primarily at regions affected by war. In practice, it is designed to prevent temporary-visa holders from those regions entering Australia and then lodging protection (refugee) visa applications in response to the current situation, and to keep bad actors out — an effective measure for safeguarding national security.

Local Australian media has also reported onthe number of temporary visas held by people from the restricted regions — more than 40,000 in total.

In theory, it restricts all temporary visas: Student visas, Visitor visas and so on. However, exemptions apply — for example, parents, spouses and other immediate family members of permanent residents or citizens.

Does it affect Chinese passport holders?

There is no direct impact at present.The only potential impact: if you hold a Chinese passport and travel in and out of the Middle East, and the specific rules are not based on passport nationality,but rather on recent travel history, there may be some effect — but overall it is minimal.

Also worth mentioning — our old friend Iscah published a post last weekclaiming an additional tax was to be imposed on temporary visas. The content was:on top of the existing Australian resident tax rates, an additional 35% penalty tax rate would be imposed on temporary-visa holders,It also claimedand that it had already reached final-stage discussions — only for the post to be deleted soon after. TodayIscah put out another post to clarify,saying the account had been compromised…presumably after being inundated with questions, they had to issue a clarification. Fair enough — the fact that it turned out to be a false alarm is, at least, good news.