A new Ministerial Direction No 99 (visa refusal and cancellation under section 501 and revocation of a mandatory cancellation of a visa) commenced on 3 March 2023. This Direction replaces Direction 90.
Under the old Direction 90 the strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia were considered under other considerations, under this new Direction 99 this has now been added as a primary consideration under Part 2 Section 8, with the effect that these considerations should generally be given more weight by decision-makers.
The principles under Subsection 5.2 have also been amended with the following paragraph added under 5.2(5):
With respect to decisions to refuse, cancel, and revoke cancellation of a visa, Australia will generally afford a higher level of tolerance of criminal or other serious conduct by non-citizens who have lived in the Australian community for most of their life, or from a very young age. The level of tolerance will rise with the length of time a non-citizen has spent in the Australian community, particularly in their formative years.
I have previously blogged about being an alien by “the barest of threads“. I borrowed that title from an academic paper which looked at the position of Stefan Nystrom (who had lived in Australia since he was four weeks old, but who was nevertheless sent back to Sweden, a country with which he had no connection).
Hopefully the new direction will help some of these long term residents who are effectively “home grown” problems despite their foreign citizenship.
Creative commons acknowledgement for the photograph.
