Preparing a Defensible 482 Nomination: The Genuine Position Statement and Position Description

What this module covers

1. SECTION 1 — What the criterion actually requiresIncluded free ↓
2. SECTION 2 — Instructions before draftingFull text on enrolment
3. SECTION 3 — Structuring the statementFull text on enrolment
4. SECTION 4 — Stream and occupationFull text on enrolment
5. SECTION 5 — Applicable circumstances: when the occupation does not applyFull text on enrolment
6. SECTION 6 — The position description and the employment contractFull text on enrolment
7. SECTION 7 — Critique and repairFull text on enrolment

SECTION 1 — What the criterion actually requires

(Public preview section — ungated)

Every nomination document answers a question. The genuine position statement answers the hardest one: is this a real role that this business needs, or a role assembled to support a visa application?

That framing explains something practitioners often find puzzling — why a long, polished, professionally written statement can attract a request for information while a shorter one sails through. The criterion is not testing the quality of the document. It is testing whether the facts described are the facts of a real business need. A statement can be fluent, well-organised and grammatically immaculate and still fail, because fluency is not evidence.

The provision has two limbs

Regulation 2.72(10) requires the Minister to be satisfied that the position associated with the occupation is:

• (a) genuine; and
• (b) a full-time position.

Most practitioner discussion treats the criterion as being about genuineness alone. It is not. The full-time requirement sits in the same subregulation and is a criterion in its own right.

Regulation 2.72(10A) allows the Minister to disregard the full-time limb where satisfied it is reasonable in the circumstances to do so. That discretion connects onward: under reg 2.72(16)(aa), where the full-time limb has been disregarded under (10A), the Minister may also disregard the requirement in reg 2.72(15)(e) that the nominee's annual earnings be no less than the annual market salary rate — again where reasonable.

That is a coherent concession for genuinely part-time roles, and it is worth understanding before telling a sponsor that a part-time position cannot be nominated. It can be, but it depends on a discretion, and a nomination relying on a discretion needs to give the decision-maker a reason to exercise it.

Comparison worth carrying. The equivalent provision for subclass 494 — reg 2.72C(12) — requires the position to be genuine, full-time and likely to exist for at least 5 years. The 482 provision has no such element. Practitioners who work across both programs sometimes import the five-year framing into 482 statements, over-evidencing continuation, or carry the 482 framing into a 494 and under-evidence it. The requirements differ; the drafting should.

The generic statement problem

The most reliable predictor of scrutiny is a statement that would read identically if you substituted a different employer.

Consider a paragraph of a kind that appears in a great many nominations:

The Company operates in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry. In order to maintain its market position and continue to deliver high-quality outcomes for its clients, the Company requires a skilled and experienced professional to undertake the duties of the nominated position. The Company has been unable to source a suitable candidate locally and considers that the nominated applicant possesses the requisite skills and experience.

Nothing in that paragraph is false. Nothing in it is evidence either. Delete "the Company" and insert any business in Australia and the paragraph remains equally true and equally uninformative. It describes a category of commercial situation rather than this business's situation.

Specificity is not detail for its own sake. A statement can be dense with company history, market share and client lists and still be generic, because none of that evidences that this role is needed. The useful test when reviewing your own draft:

Could this paragraph be true of the business next door? If yes, it is not doing evidentiary work.

The documents sit inside a certification framework

One structural point shapes everything that follows. The nomination process in reg 2.73 requires the sponsor to certify a series of matters in writing as part of the nomination — that the tasks of the position include a significant majority of the tasks specified for the occupation, that the nominee's qualifications and experience are commensurate with those specified, that the employment contract complies with employment law, and whether the sponsor has engaged in conduct contravening s 245AR(1) of the Act.

The agent does not make those certifications. The sponsor does. But the agent prepares the documents on which the sponsor relies in making them.

That means a genuine position statement and position description are not only persuasive documents. They are the factual basis for a sponsor's written certification. Drafting duties that overstate what the position does exposes the sponsor to having certified something inaccurate. This is the professional dimension of the work and it runs underneath the whole module.

What the statement must establish

1. Why the role exists now — the operational or commercial development that created the need, and when.
2. Where it sits — position in the structure, reporting line, what reports to it.
3. What it does — duties, described as tasks, corresponding to the nominated occupation.
4. That it continues — evidence the position is ongoing beyond the visa term.
5. That it is full-time — or, if not, a basis for the reg 2.72(10A) discretion.

What this module does

This module is about producing these documents, not merely recognising defects in them. It covers the instructions to take before drafting, the structure of the statement, stream and occupation determination, the circumstances in which an occupation ceases to apply regardless of the statement's quality, the position description and contract, and critique-and-repair against defective drafts.

A note on method. This module does not supply templates, and that is deliberate rather than cautious. A templated genuine position statement is the failure mode described above. What transfers between matters is the reasoning — which facts evidence which element, and what to do when the facts are thin. The worked examples are annotated to expose that reasoning and are built on fictional businesses specific enough that the text itself is of no use to you.

Sample assessment questions

A sample of the question style. The real assessment draws 10 questions at random, is marked server-side, and is available once you enrol.