Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: What this Superyacht Crew visa lets you do

If you are granted this Superyacht Crew visa, you can:

• stay in Australia for a period of usually no more than 12 months, although stays of  three or  six months  might also be granted
• enter Australia as many times as you want while the visa is valid
• work on your sponsor’s Superyacht while you are in Australia.

You cannot do any work that is not part of the usual day-to-day routine maintenance or business of the superyacht.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Before you apply

The captain or owner of the vessel that you will be working on must either be an approved Superyacht Crew sponsor or have applied to become one.

Your passport

If you plan to get a new passport, you should do so before applying for your visa. In most cases, you and your family members must have valid passports to be granted this Superyacht Crew visa.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Cost

There is no application charge for this Superyacht Crew visa.

Other costs

You might have to pay other costs, such as the costs of health assessments, police certificates, or any other certificates or tests. You are responsible for making the necessary arrangements.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: How long your visa lasts

The Superyacht Crew visa (subclass 488) usually lasts for 12 months from the date it is granted, although stays of three or six months may also be granted.

To apply for a further  visa  as a superyacht crew member  while in Australia you must apply for a Temporary Activity visa (subclass 408)  while you continue to hold the visa.

What this Superyacht Crew visa lets you do

If you are granted this Superyacht Crew visa, you can:

• stay in Australia for a period of usually no more than 12 months, although stays of  three or  six months may also be granted
• enter Australia as many times as you want while the visa is valid
• work on your sponsor’s superyacht while you are in Australia.

You cannot do any work that is not part of the usual day-to-day routine maintenance or business of the superyacht.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Your obligations

You must comply with all visa conditions and Australian laws.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Working in Australia

You can work only as a superyacht crew member in Australia, and only for your sponsor. You cannot do any work for the sponsor or owner of the superyacht that is not part of the day-to-day routine maintenance or business of the superyacht.

You cannot work for any other person or for yourself.

If your employment ceases or you change employer

If your employment ceases, you must do one of the following:

• find another employer who is willing to sponsor you, and then apply for another Superyacht Crew visa  (subclass 488)
• apply for another type of substantive visa
• leave Australia within 28 days or before your visa ends.

If you want to change your employer, you will need a new sponsorship and a new Superyacht Crew visa (subclass 488).

To be granted a further Superyacht Crew visa  (subclass 488)  while in Australia, you must apply either while your Superyacht Crew visa  (subclass 488)  is still valid or while you hold another valid Australian visa.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Report changes in circumstances

Tell the department of immigration and border protection if your circumstances change. This includes a new residential address, a new passport, or a pregnancy, birth or death in your family.

You can use the following forms:

• Form 929 Change of address and/or passport details (86KB PDF) – if you move to a new address or change your passport
• Form 1022 Notification of changes in circumstances (77KB PDF) – if there are other changes in your circumstances.

If you applied online you might be able to update your address and passport details using ImmiAccount.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Sponsorship obligations

You must comply with the following sponsorship obligations:

• cooperate with inspectors
• tell the department of immigration and border protection when certain events occur
• not recover from, transfer or charge certain costs to another person
• keep records
• provide records and information to the Minister
• pay costs to locate and remove an unlawful non-citizen.

You are responsible for meeting all your obligations, even if you have someone else authorised to act on your behalf, including a migration agent.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Cooperate with inspectors

You must cooperate with inspectors appointed under the Migration Act 1958 (the Act) who are investigating  whether:

• a sponsorship obligation is being, or has been, complied with
• you have hired an illegal worker
• there are other circumstances in which we could take administrative action.

This obligation:

• starts on the day the sponsorship is approved or work agreement commences
• ends five years after the day the approved sponsorship ends or work agreement ceases.

Cooperating with inspectors can include (but is not limited to):

• providing access to premises
• producing and providing documents within the requested timeframe
• not preventing or attempting to prevent ,access to a person who has custody of, or access to, a record or documents
• providing officers with access to interview any person on their premises.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Keep records

You must keep records that show you have your complied with your obligations. All records must be in a reproducible format and some must be capable of verification by an independent person.

You must keep a record of:

• any notification that you were required to make to the department of immigration and border protection
• the date on which you notified  the department of immigration and border protection, and how and where you made the notification.

This obligation starts on the day the sponsorship is approved.

This obligation ends two years after both of the following:

• you are no longer an approved sponsor, and
• you are no longer sponsoring anyone.

You do not need to keep any records for more than five years.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Provide records and information to the Minister

You must provide records or information, if they are requested by a departmental officer that goes to determining whether:

• a sponsorship obligation is being or has been complied with, and
• determining whether other circumstances, in which the Minister may take administrative action, exist or have existed, in the manner and timeframe requested by the department.

We may ask you in writing to provide records or information which relate to your sponsorship obligations, and any other matters that relate to your sponsorship of  visa holders. You must provide the records or information requested if it is a record or information that:

• you are required to keep under Commonwealth, state or territory law
• you have an obligation to keep as a sponsor.

This obligation starts to apply on the day the sponsorship is approved or work agreement commences.

This obligation ends two years after:

• your sponsorship or work agreement ceases, and
• you no longer have a sponsored visa holder.

Tell the department of immigration and border protection when certain events occur    

You must tell the department of immigration and border protection in writing when certain events occur. Send the information by registered post or electronic mail to a specified address and within certain timeframes of the event occurring.

Events where a sponsor must provide information to the department of immigration and border protection include:

• a change to the information in the sponsor’s application for approval as a sponsor, relating to the person’s address and contact details, and
• the cessation, or expected cessation, of a primary sponsored person’s employment. If an expected cessation does not take place or the primary sponsored person will cease employment on a different date than previously notified, you must notify the department of immigration and border protection of the continued employment or new cessation date.

This obligation starts to apply on the day the standard business sponsorship is approved or the work agreement commences.

This obligation ends two years after:

• your sponsorship or work agreement ends, and
• you are no longer sponsoring anyone.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Where to send a notice of an event or change

You must send details of these events by email or to one of the department of immigration and border protection state or territory offices listed below.

By email (preferred): [email protected]

By registered post:

• Australian Capital Territory Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 717 Canberra ACT 2601
• New South Wales Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 9984 Sydney NSW 2001
• Queensland Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 9984 Brisbane Qld 4001
• Northern Territory Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 864 Darwin NT 0801
• South Australia Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 2399 Adelaide SA 5001
• Tasmania Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 794 Hobart Tas. 7001
• Victoria Sponsor Monitoring GPO Box 241 Melbourne Vic. 3001
• Western Australia Sponsor Monitoring Locked Bag 7 Northbridge WA 6865

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Not recover, transfer or charge certain  costs to another person

You must not take any action or seek to take any action that would result in the transfer or charging of costs  (including migration agent costs) to another person, such as a sponsored visa holder or their sponsored family members this includes costs that relate to:

• the recruitment of the person you sponsored
• becoming or being a sponsor or former approved sponsor.

This obligation:

• starts on the day the sponsorship is approved or the work agreement commences
• ends on the following two events:
  • you cease to be an approved sponsor or party to a work agreement
  • you  no longer have a sponsored visa holder.

Sponsors are also required to pay certain costs associated with becoming a sponsor and not pass these costs, in any form, onto another person. These include:

• cost of sponsorship and nomination charges
• migration agent costs associated with the lodgement of sponsorship and nomination applications
• administrative costs and any sundry costs an employer incurs when they conduct recruitment exercises, including:
  • recruitment agent fees
  • migration agent fees
  • the cost of job advertising
  • screening of candidates, short listing, interviews and reference checks
  • salaries of recruitment or human resource staff
  • the cost of outsourcing background checks, police checks and psychological testing where they relate to an employer determining an applicant’s suitability for the position
  • training of new staff
  • responding to queries for prospective candidates, and advising unsuccessful applicants
  • travel costs for the sponsor to interview and/or meet the applicant either overseas or in Australia.

Pay costs to locate and remove an unlawful non-citizen

In the event a primary sponsored person (or any of their sponsored family members) becomes an unlawful non-citizen, you may be required to pay the costs incurred by the Commonwealth in locating and/or removing the primary or secondary sponsored persons from Australia.

You may be liable to pay the Commonwealth the difference between the actual costs incurred by the Commonwealth (up to a maximum of AUD10 000) less any amount which may have already been paid under the obligation to pay travel costs to enable sponsored persons to leave Australia (see ‘Obligation to pay travel costs’ above).

This obligation starts on the day the person you sponsored  becomes an unlawful non-citizen. It ends five years after they leave Australia.   This means that the department might, up to five years after the person you have sponsored has left Australia, give you a letter requiring payment of the costs that the Commonwealth paid to locate and remove the person you sponsored prior to their departure from Australia.

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Monitoring of sponsors and visa holders

You must comply with your obligations as a sponsor. We monitor your compliance with the  sponsorship obligations and whether  your visa holders are upholding their visa conditions.

We monitor you while you are a sponsor and for up to five years after you cease being a sponsor. We do this routinely and in response to information provided to the department of immigration and border protection, and in three main ways:

• exchanging information with other Commonwealth, state and territory government agencies, including the Department of  Employment, the Fair  Work Ombudsman, and the Australian Taxation Office.
• writing to you to ask for information in accordance with the obligation to provide records and information
• site visits, usually to the sponsored business premises, with or without notice

Your compliance with the sponsorship obligations might be investigated by  Immigration inspectors who have investigative powers under the Migration Act 1958. Failure to cooperate with inspectors is a breach of the sponsorship obligations

Superyacht Crew Visa Subclass 488: Sanctions for not meeting your sponsorship obligations

If you do not meet your obligations, we could take one or more of the following actions:

Administrative

• you could be barred from sponsoring more people for a specified time
• you could be barred from applying for approval to be a sponsor, in relation to this Superyacht Crew visa or another one
• all of your existing approvals as a sponsor could be cancelled.

Enforceable undertaking

You could be invited to enter into an enforceable undertaking.   Enforceable undertakings require you to promise, in writing, to undertake to complete certain actions to demonstrate that the failures have been rectified and won’t happen again.

Civil

• we can issue an infringement notice of up to AUD10200 for a body corporate and AUD2040 for an individual for each failure.
• we can apply to a court for a civil penalty order of up to AUD51 000 for a corporation and AUD10200 for an individual for each failure.

Other circumstances in which administrative action might be taken

In addition, you could also have sanctions imposed if:

• you provide false or misleading information to the department of immigration and border protection or the Migration Review Tribunal
• you no longer satisfy the criteria for approval as a sponsor or for variation of a term of that approval
• you have been found by a court or competent authority to have contravened a Commonwealth, state or territory law
• the person you have sponsored breaks a law relating to the licensing, registration or membership needed to work in the nominated position.

The types of actions that could be taken depend on whether the sponsor is a standard business sponsor or has made a work agreement.

If you have sponsored someone under a work agreement, we could suspend or terminate it in accordance with the clauses of the particular work agreement.

Source: The Australian Department of Home Affairs (www.homeaffairs.gov.au). Please visit www.border.gov.au to get updated information.

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