Temporary Protection Visa or Safe  Haven Enterprise visa 

(This article has been updated on 01 JULY 2017)

* Online lodgement of TPV and SHEV applications are now available 

* Updated Regional areas for SHEV holders

Illegal Maritime arrivals (IMAs) are banned to apply for any kind of visa by section 46A of Migration Act, unless they receive an invitation to apply from the DIBP.

The Protection Application Information and Guides (PAIG) help people apply for protection. These guides provide instructions about the protection application and assessment process in Australia. However, the guides do not provide migration advice for your individual circumstances.

On 21 May 2017 the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection announced that illegal maritime arrivals (IMAs) will be barred from lodging a Temporary Protection visa (TPV) or Safe Haven Enterprise visa (SHEV) application from 1 October 2017.

If you received a reminder to apply letter you must apply within the timeframes specified in that letter.

Changes to lodgement of protection visa application process

From 1 July 2017, you must lodge your protection visa application online or by post.

You cannot lodge your paper application form in person by hand delivering to the Immgration offices.

Online lodgements

You can lodge your Protection visa application online using ImmiAccount.apply-online2

Lodging a Temporary Protection visa (subclass 785) or Safe Haven Enterprise visa (subclass 790) paper application

If you are lodging a paper application for a Temporary Protection visa (TPV) or a Safe Haven Enterprise visa (SHEV), you must post your completed paper application Form 866 – Application for a protection visa (1MB PDF) to the below address:

IMA Protection Support
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
GPO Box 9984
Sydney NSW 2001

The pre 1 July 2017 SHEV application Form 790 will continue to be accepted for an initial SHEV.

Lodging a subsequent Temporary Protection visa (subclass 785) or Safe Haven Enterprise visa (subclass 790) paper application

If you hold, or have ever held, a Temporary Protection visa (TPV) or a Safe Haven Enterprise visa (SHEV) you can lodge an application for a subsequent TPV or SHEV online using ImmiAccount.

If you are lodging a paper application for a subsequent TPV or SHEV, you must post your completed paper application Form 1505 to the below address:

IMA Protection Support
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
GPO Box 9984
Sydney NSW 2001

From 1 July 2017, TPV and SHEV paper application forms 866 and 790 will not be accepted for subsequent TPV and SHEV applications. You must use Form 1505.

 

 

TPV

The important point to remind is that the current immigration law does not provide any option for illegal maritime arrival (boat arrivals) to be granted a  permanent protection visa (not now and not after 3 or 5 years in second stage). The immigration law might change later but currently there is no pathway for IMAs to be granted a permanent protection visa. However, Safe Haven Enterprise Visa provided a pathway which will be explained bellow to allow applicant to apply for other kind of onshore permanent visas under described circumstances.

Secondly, both of these visas would be granted if you can that your protection claims are valid and you assessed as a person who is engaging Australia’s protection obligations and meet other requirements such as health, security and character checks. Otherwise, you have to return to your home country after your visa application got refused by DIBP and any other reviewing authority.

This article only provides the information to help you choose between your available options and if you need more information about assessing your claims or your review rights, you can check other articles in our website or contact us directly. At the moment there is no certain timeframe on when you are receiving an invitation to apply for TPV or SHEV if you have not received one. Also there is no timeframe on how long those it takes for application processing. Our company applied on behalf of several applicant from more than 2 months ago and we have not received any correspondence in regards to attend to an interview or a visa decision. We try to update our social media pages (Persian Facebook page / English Facebook page) when we  get any news in regards to those applications. 

3D Character and Question Mark

Temporary Protection Visas Subclass 785 

TPVs provide for stay in Australia of up to three years. Those who apply for a TPV, are assessed as engaging Australia’s protection obligations, and meet all the criteria for the grant of the visa, will be granted a TPV. At expiry, a TPV holder can apply for another TPV or a SHEV. They will need to meet all the criteria for the visa, including being found to engage Australia’s protection obligations. For those issued TPVs after 16 December 2014, the benefits, services and conditions available to aTPV holder are:

  •  permission to work

  •  access to Medicare and related benefits

  • Access to Early Health Assessment and Intervention Services (including counselling for torture and trauma)

  •  access to Special Benefits, rent assistance, family allowance, maternity allowance &

family tax benefits

  • access to education for children of school age

  • travel rights in compassionate or compelling circumstances, as determined by the Department, to places other than the country from which protection was sought (condition 8570).

A TPV does not allow the following:

  • access to a permanent Protection Visa

  • family sponsorship: holders are not able to bring family members to Australia through the Australian Humanitarian or Family Migration Programs

  • travel to country from which protection is being sought; or

  • access to settlement services, except where the relevant Minister grants access as required.

Safe Haven Enterprise Visas Subclass 790

A SHEV will provide for five years stay in Australia. SHEV applicants will need to indicate an intention to work and/or study in regional Australia to be granted a SHEV.

You have to confirm your intention to live and work/study in Regional areas specified by DIBP when you apply for this visa but as a SHEV holder if you could not stay in regional areas and decided to live and work/study anywhere else, you will not breach any conditions of your visa and you just loose a privilege to the pathway of applying for other permanent visas described as bellow:

If, for at least 42 months of the five years of the SHEV, at least one visa holder in the family unit has been:

  •  employed in ‘regional Australia’ and not receiving any social security benefits

  •  enrolled in full-time study in regional Australia, or

  •  a combination of the above.

they will be able to apply for other onshore visas (but not a permanent Protection visa). SHEV holders will need to provide evidence of studying or working for 3.5 of 5 years in a regional area to be assessed to have met these requirements.

If a SHEV holder does not meet these requirements upon the expiry of their SHEV, they can still apply for another SHEV or a TPV. They will need to meet all the criteria for the visa, including being found to engage Australia’s protection obligations.

If an IMA applies for a SHEV and is assessed as engaging Australia’s protection obligations, and meets all the criteria for the grant of the visa, they will be granted a SHEV. The benefits, services and conditions of a SHEV are as follows:

  • permission to work

  • access to Medicare and related benefits

  • access to Early Health Assessment and Intervention Services (including counselling for torture and trauma)

  • access to Special Benefits, rent assistance, family allowance, maternity allowance and family tax benefits

  • access to education for children of school age

  • travel rights in compassionate or compelling circumstances, as determined by the Department, to places other than the country from which protection was sought (condition 8570).

A SHEV does not allow the following:

  • access to a permanent Protection Visa

  • family sponsorship: holders are not able to bring family members to Australia through the Australian Humanitarian or Family Migration Programmes

  • travel to country from which protection is being sought; or

  • access to settlement services, except where the relevant Minister grants access as required.


Regional areas are currently specified by DIBP. The list has been updated on 27th of October 2016 and many areas in most states (except NT) are included in the program as bellow table*:

 

 

State / Territory

Regional Areas for SHEV
Australian Capital Territory Includes all postcodes in the Australian Capital Territory (Added on 27 October 2016)
New South Wales All areas Excludes Sydney, Newcastle, the Central Coast and Wollongong (Dungog Shire, Maitland City and Mid-Coast Council Region Added on 27 October 2016)
Queensland All areas Excludes the Greater Brisbane area and the Gold Coast (Added on 27 October 2016)
South Australia Includes all postcodes in South Australia (Added on 27 October 2016)
Tasmania Includes all postcodes in Tasmania
Victoria All areas Excludes Melbourne Metropolitan and some regional local government areas (Alpine, Ararat, Buloke, Campaspe, Cardinia, Central Goldfields, Hepburn, Macedon Ranges, Mansfield, Mitchell, Moira, Moorabool, Mount Alexander, South Gippsland, Southern Grampians, Surf Coast, Towong and Yarra Ranges). Even though a local government area is excluded there may be postcodes within that area that are included. Please refer to the listed postcodes in DIBP website for inclusions. (Added on 27 October 2016)
Western Australia All areas Excludes Perth and some areas in the Pilbara and Goldfields-Esperance regions (Added on 27 October 2016)

* For the complete list of the postcodes and check the eligibility of the area, please refer to the designated DIBP website page for more details.

 

 

If you need any more information please do not hesitate to contact us.

update on processing of temporary protection visa assessment (Announced on 20 September 2016) :

The Temporary Protection Visa Assessment Branch (TPVA) have made changes to processing arrangements for sub-classes 785 (Temporary Protection Visas) and sub-class 790 (Safe Haven Enterprise Visas). The changes are as below:

  • Refusal Notifications From 12 September 2016 the following changes will take place in relation to refusal notifications. Refusal notifications will be sent by email when consent has been provided to correspond electronically. Interview recordings will only be provided upon request. The refusal notification letter will include information on how to request the interview recording by sending an email to the relevant processing team.
  • AFP Penal Certificates From 2 September, TPVA will no longer be requesting Illegal Maritime Arrivals (IMA) to obtain Australian Federal Police (AFP) Penal Certificates as a matter of course. Instead TPVA will be sourcing this information automatically from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (formally CrimTrac) as part of the visa application. These arrangements currently exist for Citizenship processing. This will benefit clients in not being required to apply and pay for an AFP penal clearance.
  • Health Requests Until now it has been standard practice to request TPV/SHEV applicants to undertake any outstanding health requirements toward the end of the visa application process. TPVA will begin to issue health request of IMAs who have not undertaken the full suite of health requirements towards the front end of the process, including prior to the invitation to lodge an application. These requests will commence shortly and continue in stages over the next several months.

References:

http://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Refu/protection-application-information-and-guides-paig

http://www.ima.border.gov.au/Waiting-in-the-community

 

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