LIU (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an appeal by an applicant for a Skilled (Provisional) (Class VC) visa, Subclass 485. The applicant had nominated the occupation of "Surveyor" in her visa application, but contended that this was an error and she had intended to nominate "Quantity Surveyor". The delegate had made an adverse decision based on this discrepancy.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant had been assessed as suitable for the nominated occupation and, if so, whether the assessment period had expired. The applicant sought to correct the nominated occupation, submitting a statutory declaration and a notification of incorrect answers to support her claim that she had mistakenly entered "Surveyor" instead of "Quantity Surveyor".

The Tribunal considered previous case law, including *Chen v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship* and *Patel v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship*, which had discussed the possibility of correcting an incorrectly nominated occupation. While *Chen* suggested that a new application might be the only option for such an error, later cases like *Patel* and *Pavuluri v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection* indicated that it might be possible to correct an incorrect answer under section 105 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), provided there was evidence to support a different characterisation of the nominated occupation at the time of application. The Tribunal noted that the Federal Court in *Pavuluri* had accepted that other evidence could be examined to clarify an applicant's intended occupation.

The Tribunal remitted the applications for reconsideration with a direction that the applicant met the criteria for a Subclass 485 visa, specifically clauses 485.224(1) and 485.224(1A) of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994.