Overview

Many visa applicants require a sponsor or nominator and, for many visas, there is a requirement for an assurance of support and/or a social security bond. Nearly all visas have requirements related to members of the family unit of the primary applicant, called ‘secondary criteria’ in Schedule 2, even though, in some cases, those ‘secondary’ people are not included in the visa application. Common to all people who have already made a visa application in Australia, they may be refused a second opportunity to make an application. Those matters are canvassed in chapter 4.

Most visas have application charges and several of the permanent visas require those payments to be made in two instalments. The second instalment might include a health charge or payment for English language classes. Those payments are set out in the relevant visa class in Schedule 1.

Criteria related to the health and character of visa applicants are included in all of the prescribed Schedule 2 visas and are commonly known as the public interest criteria (PIC). Failure to meet those criteria will usually result in an application being refused, notwithstanding that the applicant may have met the signature criterion (for instance, establishes a genuine marriage in an application for a spouse visa). An exception is for protection visa applicants, who do not have to ‘pass’ the health test, but still have to be assessed.