At this stage I was ready to lodge my application. I had chosen to lodge my application online instead of sending it by post because not only it would be faster, I do not have to worry about my documents getting lost in transit. Besides, most of the photocopied documents had to be certified by a dignitary. Scanning and sending them in full original colours mean that I could forego this hassle.
Once I completed all the required information in the massive pile of forms and provided my credit card information, I received an email notification within 24 hours with the subject as below:
'AUTOMATIC NOTIFICATION OF APPLICATION FOR MIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA UNDER THE GENERAL SKILLED MIGRATION PROGRAM - REQUEST FOR FURTHER INFORMATION'
This email contained some important information such as :
TRANSACTION RECORD NUMBER (TRN)
this was the information I used to access the website to check my application status. If you are engaging an agent, you must get your agent to provide you this information so that you could monitor your application status and also serve as a proof that your application has actually been submitted.
FURTHER DOCUMENTS REQUEST:-
for myself :
Birth certificate or other evidence of age
Copy of page of passport containing personal details
Evidence of IELTS test
Evidence of overseas qualifications
Evidence of skills assessment
Evidence of 'Specific Work Experience'
Evidence of work experience
Marriage certificate
Passport photo
Form 160EH - Radiologist report on chest x-ray
Form 26EH - Medical examination for an Australian visa
Form 47P - Overseas penal clearance certificate
for my spouse:
Birth certificate or other evidence of age
Copy of page of passport containing personal details
Evidence of IELTS test
Passport photo
Form 160EH - Radiologist report on chest x-ray
Form 26EH - Medical examination for an Australian visa
Form 47P - Overseas penal clearance certificate
for my children:
Birth certificate or other evidence of age
Copy of page of passport containing personal details
Passport photo
Form 26EH - Medical examination for an Australian visa
(The email also provided a link and guide on how to attach the documents and what type of document format are valid for attachment , such as BMP, DOC, DOT, GIF, JPG, PDF, RTF, TXT and XLS)
I submitted all documents in the list except for the following 3, which I planned to submit 6 months later depending on the status of my application:
Form 160EH - Radiologist report on chest x-ray
Form 26EH - Medical examination for an Australian visa
Form 47P - Overseas penal clearance certificate
The reason being there is a validity period attached to these three sets of documents. The deadline where you need to make the first entry once the Visa is approved, is calculated from the date when you lodge the said forms, which is normally based on 12 months from the date of any one of the above forms, whichever expires earlier. Complicated? Yup. Took us a while to understand it too.
Another point to note is when I lodged my application, I thought all applicants must submit their Form80 (Personal Particulars for Character Assessment) because this was one of the forms listed in the Application Document checklist downloaded from the website. After spending quite a fair bit of time filling up this set of forms, I was never asked to produce it during the application. It made me assume this maybe for applicants from countries which do not provide Overseas Penal Clearance Certificates.
