Pendragon Straight Talk: Episode Twelve

 
TRANSCRIPT
 
JOHN GLOVER: Hello and welcome to another Pendragon Straight Talk. This week’s question is what are the main visas that allow you to work in Australia. I think this is a good question and I’ll cover off Permanent Residency, student visas, working holiday visas, 400 and 457 visas.
 
Obviously if you’re on a permanent residency and you have PR here, you can work anywhere for anyone. You can work part time or full time, with no minimum salary except for obviously obeying the law of the land and being paid the minimum wage for working in Australia.
 
If you come here on a student visa, this is slightly different, you are only allowed to work for twenty hours per week during your semester but whilst you’re not in semester and you’re on holiday and you have a break from university, you’re allowed to work full time, in any industry, for anybody.
 
The 417 or 462 visas, which are your working holiday visas, they allow you to come into Australia for up to a year sometimes two years, but you can only work for one company, one entity, for six months’ maximum, you cannot work beyond six months. Some people think that that by changing recruitment company or payroll company or management company, that this means you can continue to work in the company that you’re at because you’re being paid through a different source. This is illegal and not allowed. It’s the place you’re sitting or you’re working actually at which is the six months that you must not go over.
 
The 400 visa is a slightly different one, not a lot of people know about this visa, this is for short stay, usually three months’ max, although you can request six months, but it’s a bit hard. This is for highly skilled and specialist people where companies need to write to immigration and put the paperwork in with the individual to say that they need this person for the period of time. You cannot move from this visa to another visa, so you can’t move to a 457 visa to stay longer, or the PR, you must leave the country and then apply for any other visa you want to move to. You can actually, though, be paid onshore or offshore for this visa.
 
This brings us to the main one which is the 457 visa, one of the most popular work visas to get people into Australia to work. You have to be highly skilled for this visa, its valid for up to four years and can be renewed for another four years thereafter. You have to earn what is called the market salary level, as set by immigration, or they vet what that is, and that basically they look at the average of the salaries in the country, and maybe in that particular company that you’re going to work at. If you’re being paid less than the same position that is being worked in by an Australian, then they won’t let you get the visa, so you’ve got to be paid the same or more than an Australian. The other major thing with this visa is that you do have to have the company sponsoring you directly for that positon, so you can’t get the visa without the company sponsoring you, or you can be sponsored by an on-hire company or on-hire firm, and they have to be qualified by Immigration that they can become a sponsoring entity on your behalf.
 
I think that covers about the main ones, thanks for listening and I look forward to talking to you next week. Goodbye.