The DIBP (Department of Immigration and Border Protection) has a website where anyone can lodge their own visa application online. You can make your own “Immi Account”, click the buttons and away you go. Is that all you need? Or is a successful visa application from Philippines to Australia a bit more complicated than that?

Many will assume that an easy online application system will make the process also easy. Well, guess what? The statistics don’t back that up at all! Immi Account online applications get refused every day, just like the paper ones always have!

Australian visitor visas – more than just forms

The biggest mistake anyone can make with an Australian visitor visa application from Philippines (aka “tourist visa” application) is to think it’s just a form. You still have around a 1:4 chance of a refusal or having to withdraw your application because of errors.

Filling out the form is about 10% of the work in a successful visa application.

You may even fill out the form correctly, and still face a refusal. This isn’t like renewing your drivers license. This is an application for a grant, and there remains a real possibility that you won’t earn that grant because it’s about fulfilling criteria set into Australian law in the Migration Regulations (Cth) 1994. And that takes more than ticking the right boxes.

What makes a successful tourist visa application?

Meet the criteria, and you will get a visa. Don’t meet the criteria, and you won’t. You need to prove to the Case Officers at the Australian Embassy that you meet the criteria before they will grant the visa. If you don’t, they literally have no choice. And they do this because they have so many who try to do the wrong thing. It’s the nature of things when you have a rich country and a poor country. Many in the Philippines see wealthier countries as lands of opportunity and would love to be there to share in the wealth. And tourist visas seem like the easy way in. So many will have wrong intentions in their attempts to get into Australia.

What are the visa criteria? I won’t list them all, but I will tell you that the main issue is around the word “genuine”. Tourist visas are for visiting family and friends and for doing tourist-things. They are not for working, or for seeking work, or for staying for a long time and avoiding a more expensive partner visa application. They want to believe absolutely that the visa applicant has a good reason to visit that matches what tourist visas are for, and will be on the plane home before the visa stay period runs out.

Sound simple? I suppose on the surface it does, but the weakness in doing your own application is that you see it through your own eyes and naturally will assume that what you’re submitting is good enough and is exactly what they want to see. I know this, because every client who comes to us for help after their application was refused is shocked and dismayed. Many are angry and indignant, feeling that they were singled out and given unfair treatment. When we look at what their application consisted of, we normally disagree.

Bottom line is that the Australian Embassy staff in Manila don’t know you or anything about you. They have your application form, be it a paper Form 1419 or an online immi account application form, and they have whatever else you submitted with it. And if what they have doesn’t paint a very clear picture of a genuine applicant, then yes they will refuse it instantly. That’s their job.

I asked before “What makes a successful tourist visa application?”

A well-prepared and well-presented collection of information and evidence that the visa applicant meets the visa criteria beyond reasonable doubt. This is what an experienced Registered Migration Agent does for you.

And what makes that happen consistently?

Ticking the boxes correctly on an online form and clicking SUBMIT? No! What it takes is knowledge, skills and experience in managing these applications hundreds of times per year for Australian Filipina couples, and to keep doing it again and again. Sounds to me like a Registered Migration Agent once again.

Further Reading

How to ensure an Australian visa refusal!

Australian tourist visas and the risk of overstaying

Registered Migration Agent – What a great job!