457 Sponsorship is a common term in the Perth and Australian market at large for visa sponsorship and is used by many for work visas (sometimes called a work permit) and immigration to Australia. The 457 visa is considered by the DIAC as a mainstay for skilled migration, and can also lead nicely to permanent residency. The idea for this article came from attending a recent event where there was a delegate from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s (DIAC) sponsor monitoring division in WA. There are a total of 9 obligations required of standard business sponsors that the DIAC monitor. (We suggest you look at the Global Enterprises document that introduces these obligations if you are not familiar with them.) There appears to be a little uncertainty about this whole process in the market and we thought it would be good to outline it here.

 It is rare that the monitoring team will randomly initiate an audit, but it has the necessary powers to do so. Should the monitoring division decide they are going to perform an audit on a sponsor’s business, they generally follow the below process: or by site visit (unannounced or announced) audit being audited, then section 140XF notice requiring provision of records / docs is issued – 14 days to respond if to this stage, and then potential infringement with the sponsor having 2 weeks to respond (see below) Outcomes: There are 6 potential outcomes to being monitored by the DIAC. They are the following: 

  1. Satisfactory (‘all good’, no corrective action) be that the company failed to notify the DIAC of change in circumstances) delays in nominations further down the track
  2. Unsatisfactory: sanction (bar – up to 5 year/cancel existing sponsorship)
  3. Infringement ($)
  4. CivilAction($$$).This is often used where contraventions are large such as the major withholding of salaries from employees. The delegate from the DIAC further warned that their powers to issue infringements and pursue civil action have recently been used in an increasing number.

If you or your business is unsure if you would be compliant or ready for such an audit if it ever happened, may we encourage you to be in contact with us today, on enquiries@globalenterprisesgroup.com