The Points Are The Gate

The three points-tested visas are published in full. Subclass 189 needs no sponsor and lets the holder work anywhere in the country. Subclass 190 needs a state or territory nomination and adds 5 points for it. Subclass 491 needs a regional sponsor, runs five years as a provisional visa, and adds 15 points. Every applicant reads the same table. Most read the wrong line. The line that matters is not the 65-point floor for lodging an expression of interest. It is the invitation cut-off, which for competitive occupations has run at 85 to 95 points in recent rounds. Sixty-five gets the file into the system. The invitation gets the person into the country.

Age is scored at the date of invitation, not the date of lodgement. Between 25 and 32 the award is 30 points, the maximum on the sheet. Between 18 and 24 it drops to 25. Between 33 and 39 it is 25 again. Between 40 and 44 it is 15. Sixteen years of the working life sit inside those brackets, and the highest band is only seven years wide. Nothing else in Schedule 6D is fixed before an applicant starts. This one is fixed before the application exists.

English is the only category on the table that moves in weeks. Competent English scores nothing, because it is the entry condition: IELTS 6.0 in each band, or PTE 50. Proficient, IELTS 7.0 each band, adds 10. Superior, IELTS 8.0 each band, adds 20, and the published equivalents are PTE 79 and TOEFL iBT with writing at 30. That is a 20-point swing from one retake, and it is the largest single move available to a candidate who is already inside the eligible age bands. One condition travels with it. The result is valid for three years from the test date at the time of invitation, so a certificate can expire while an expression of interest sits in the pool.

Skilled employment is scored twice, once offshore and once onshore, at different rates. Three to five years outside the country is 5 points. Five to seven is 10. Eight to 10 is 15. The same eight to 10 years inside the country is 20. A doctorate, Australian or recognised overseas, is 20, against 15 for a bachelor or masters and 10 for an Australian trade qualification or diploma. Two years of Australian study adds 5. A masters by research or a doctorate in a STEM field adds 10. The arithmetic pays more for years spent inside the system than outside it. That is a price, and prices are set on purpose.

Sixty-five points gets you into the queue. It does not get you out of it.

The partner and nomination columns are the ones applicants discover last. A single applicant takes 10 points. A partner with competent English takes 5, and a partner who also holds a skills assessment takes 10. A state nomination adds 5. A regional sponsorship adds 15. A NAATI community language credential adds 5 and regional study adds 5 more. The gap between a single applicant and a partnered applicant with a full skills assessment is 10 points, which is the exact size of the gap between competent and proficient English. Two people can do the same work for the same years and land on different totals.

The nomination is where two identical scores separate, because each state publishes its own timing. New South Wales runs 6 to 12 weeks and takes invitations only. Victoria runs 6 to 8. Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory all sit between 4 and 8 weeks. The ACT runs 12 to 14 weeks on a Matrix, which is a different selection instrument with different inputs. The 190 takes 5 points from a nomination, and at the 50th percentile it takes 14 months to process, with the 90th percentile at 18. The 491 takes 15 points, and in its state version it takes 4 months at the 50th percentile against 23 months at the 90th. The points are identical. The waits are not.

Every number above sits downstream of one table that applicants skip. At 95 points and above, the invitation tends to arrive in the same round. At 85 to 94, one to three months. At 75 to 84, six to 18 months. At 65 to 74, often never, and the outcome depends on the occupation. Processing then starts, and the 189 is published at 6 months for the 50th percentile, while the 90th percentile reads 7 months in an April snapshot and 15 months in a May snapshot. Those are two readings of one volatile statistic taken a month apart. Averaging them would be inventing a number. The 491 converts to permanent subclass 191 after three years of regional living, and the 191 runs about 4 months at the 50th percentile. The probability that a candidate plans around the visa and loses the year to the invitation round is not zero. Most applicants are pricing it at zero.