Canjeevaram Dinesh (Migration)

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision not to grant the applicant a Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) (Class PS) visa (Subclass 491). The applicant had nominated an occupation as an ICT Security Specialist. The core of the dispute revolved around the validity of the applicant's skills assessment at the time of invitation to apply for the visa.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant met the requirements of clause 491.214(1) of the Migration Regulations 1994. Specifically, the Tribunal had to consider whether, at the time of invitation to apply for the visa, the relevant assessing authority had assessed the applicant's skills as suitable for their nominated occupation, and whether that assessment was still valid according to the criteria set out in the regulations.

The Tribunal reasoned that clause 491.214(1) requires a valid skills assessment to be in place at the time of invitation to apply. The applicant's initial skills assessment from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) was dated 1 March 2018 and was valid for 24 months. The invitation to apply for the visa was issued on 20 May 2020 and remained open until 19 July 2020. Therefore, the initial skills assessment had expired before the invitation was issued. Although the applicant submitted a new skills assessment dated 29 July 2020, this was after the expiry date of the invitation. Applying the reasoning from *Thapa v MICMSMA*, the Tribunal interpreted "at the time of invitation to apply" to mean the period during which the invitation was valid or open. Consequently, the Tribunal found that the applicant did not have a valid skills assessment during the period the invitation was open. As this was a prescribed criterion for the visa, the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the visa.