SANGKASANYA (Migration)

This matter concerned the affirmation of a decision to cancel the first named applicant’s Subclass 573 Higher Education Sector visa. The dispute arose when the Minister, through a delegate, cancelled the visa on the grounds that the first named applicant had failed to comply with a condition of his visa. The applicants sought review of this decision before the Tribunal.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the first named applicant had complied with condition 8516 of his visa, which required him to continue to be a person who would satisfy the primary or secondary criteria for the grant of the visa. This, in turn, required the Tribunal to consider whether the first named applicant remained enrolled in a principal course of study of a type specified for Subclass 573 visas. If a breach of condition 8516 was found, the Tribunal then had to consider whether to exercise its discretion to cancel the visa, having regard to all relevant circumstances.

The Tribunal reasoned that the first named applicant had not complied with condition 8516 because his enrolment in a Master of Business Administration course was cancelled for non-commencement, and subsequent enrolments in other courses also resulted in cancellations. The Tribunal noted that the only course he completed in Australia was an English language course, which did not fulfil the purpose for which the Student visa was granted. Consequently, the Tribunal found that the grounds for cancelling the visa outweighed the grounds for not cancelling it, and affirmed the delegate's decision.