How to Apply for an LGBT Protection Visa in Australia: Indonesian Applicants

Can an Indonesian citizen apply for an Australian protection visa because they are LGBT?

Yes. An Indonesian citizen who is already in Australia can apply for a Subclass 866 protection visa on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status, and the application is made in the same way as any other onshore protection visa application. There is no separate visa for LGBT applicants, no separate form, and no separate queue. The words "LGBT protection visa" describe the claim, not the visa. The visa is the Subclass 866 protection visa, and the claim is that the applicant is a refugee within the meaning of section 5H of the Migration Act 1958, or is owed complementary protection under section 36(2)(aa), because of who they are.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. The criteria are statutory, the process is prescribed, and the decision is made by a delegate of the Minister under section 65 of the Act. The parts of the process that decide most Indonesian files, which are the written claims, the identity material and the interview, are the same parts that decide every other protection application. What differs is what has to be proved.

This article explains the application itself: who may lodge, what must be in it on the day it goes in, how the Department of Home Affairs handles Indonesian claims, and what happens after a decision. The background law on sexuality based claims is set out on the LGBTI protection visa page, and the general framework for the visa is on the Subclass 866 protection visa page.

What the law requires an Indonesian LGBT applicant to establish

An applicant must satisfy one of two criteria, and only one. The first is the refugee criterion in section 36(2)(a). A person is a refugee under section 5H(1) if they are outside their country of nationality, they have a well-founded fear of persecution, and they are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country because of that fear. Section 5J defines when a fear is well-founded. There must be a real chance of persecution for one of the reasons listed in section 5J(1)(a), which include membership of a particular social group, and under section 5J(1)(c) that real chance must relate to all areas of the country.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex Indonesians are ordinarily advanced as members of a particular social group. Section 5L sets out when a group other than a family qualifies: the characteristic is shared by each member, it is innate or immutable or otherwise fundamental to identity or conscience such that a person should not be forced to renounce it, and it distinguishes the group from society. Sexual orientation and gender identity fit that definition on its own terms.

The second criterion is complementary protection under section 36(2)(aa). It applies where there are substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal to Indonesia, there is a real risk the applicant will suffer significant harm. Significant harm is exhaustively defined in section 36(2A) and includes arbitrary deprivation of life, the death penalty, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment, and degrading treatment or punishment. Complementary protection does not require a nexus to a Convention reason. It requires risk and severity. The interaction between the two grounds in sexuality based claims is explained further on the complementary protection page.

The two grounds are compared in general terms in the article on LGBTI protection visas in Australia. An Indonesian application should be argued on both grounds where the facts support both, because the tests are different and a finding that fails one may still succeed on the other.

Does a claim fail because Indonesia has no national law against same-sex relations?

No. Indonesian law does not name same-sex conduct as an offence outside Aceh and the military, and that fact is put to applicants as though it answers the claim. It does not, for three reasons. Persecution is not confined to criminal punishment: under section 5J(4) the conduct must involve serious harm and must be systematic and discriminatory, and section 5J(5) gives examples of serious harm that include a threat to life or liberty, significant physical harassment or ill treatment, and denial of a capacity to earn a livelihood where that denial threatens the person's capacity to subsist. Harm inflicted by people other than the state counts where the state will not or cannot provide protection, which is the ordinary shape of an Indonesian claim. And since 2 January 2026 the national Criminal Code has reached same-sex couples in practice, for the reasons set out below.

Four things are recorded in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Country Information Report on Indonesia, which a decision maker must take into account where it is relevant, because Direction No. 84, made under section 499 of the Migration Act, requires a DFAT assessment prepared for protection status determination purposes to be taken into account.

Aceh. The Qanun Jinayat, enacted in 2014 and in force since 2015, makes same-sex sexual acts an offence in Articles 63 and 64, punishable by caning, a fine in gold or imprisonment, and public caning has been imposed there. The report assesses that LGBTI people in Aceh face a high risk of official and societal discrimination and violence. Aceh's Islamic criminal law is directed at Muslims, although non-Muslims may elect to be dealt with under it, so for a non-Muslim applicant from Aceh the claim usually rests on societal and family harm rather than on the Qanun itself.

Policing. The report records that LGBTI people are targeted by police even though no law names same-sex conduct, including raids on private gatherings and charges laid under the anti-pornography law, that same-sex sexual activity is an offence in the military, and that most LGBTI people avoid police because of the threat of arrest or extortion.

Family. The report records that those whose families reject them face a high risk of poverty, may be forced into sham marriages, and are otherwise required to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity day to day.

The finding a delegate will quote back. The report assesses the national risk of official and societal discrimination as moderate rather than high, and records that Bali and international tourism workplaces are somewhat safer than the rest of the country. Neither finding answers an individual claim. A moderate risk is not a low risk, the report reaches that assessment while also recording that most LGBTI Indonesians are forced to conceal, and safety that depends on concealment is not safety that Australian law may require of an applicant. That argument belongs in the application rather than being left for the delegate to raise.

The report was also written before Indonesia's new Criminal Code commenced, so it describes that Code as something still to come. The current position is set out below.

None of this decides an individual case. It sets the frame within which an individual case is decided, which is why an Indonesian application that consists only of country information, with no personal account tied to it, is an application that has not been made properly.

What changed in Indonesian law after the country report was written

Three developments post-date the July 2023 report, and an Indonesian application should put them before the delegate rather than assume the report covers them.

The new Criminal Code is in force. Law No. 1 of 2023 commenced on 2 January 2026 and replaced the code inherited from Dutch colonial rule. Article 411 makes sexual intercourse outside marriage an offence punishable by up to one year of imprisonment, and Article 412 makes cohabitation outside a lawful marriage an offence punishable by up to six months. Both are complaint based, and the complaint may be made by a spouse, a parent or a child. The explanatory material to those articles is framed around a man and a woman who are not married to each other, so it is not accurate to say that the Code names same-sex conduct. The accurate position is narrower and still serious. Same-sex couples cannot marry in Indonesia, so they cannot be lawfully married for these purposes, the people with standing to complain are family members, and human rights organisations warn that offences of this kind invite selective enforcement and extortion. For an applicant whose family has rejected them, the people entitled to complain are the people the applicant fears.

Sexual and gender diversity has been brought inside the national security framework. Presidential Regulation No. 111 of 2025, the General National Defence Policy for 2025 to 2029, was signed in October 2025 and lists the spread of LGBT culture among Indonesia's non-military threats to national defence.

Direct criminalisation has been proposed. In 2026 the Fatwa Commission of the Indonesian Ulema Council announced that it was preparing an academic paper and a draft bill to criminalise same-sex conduct and advocacy for it. That is a proposal and not law, and it must be described that way, but it is evidence of the direction of travel that a delegate can be asked to weigh when assessing whether a fear is well-founded.

None of this appears in the current DFAT report, which is the assessment a decision maker is directed to take into account. That is a reason to put the primary material in the application, not a reason to assume the delegate already has it.

Which Indonesian applicants have more than a country information claim

The applicants whose files carry a personal claim, rather than a general one, fall into recognisable groups. A person from Aceh, or from a family or community governed by conservative religious authority, has a geographically specific claim. A person who has already been outed, by family, a former partner, a colleague or through social media, has a claim about what is now known about them in Indonesia. A person pressed into marriage, subjected to attempts at so-called cure, or confined or watched by family, has a claim about the family as the agent of harm. A person who is transgender or gender diverse, including a person who identifies as waria, has a claim about identity documents, employment exclusion and street level violence that is different in kind from a claim about private relationships.

Claims can also be compound. Religion and sexuality frequently overlap in Indonesian files, particularly where a person has left a faith or has been denounced within a religious community. Where they do, the religious element is a separate ground and should be pleaded as such rather than folded into the sexuality claim. The way religious claims are assessed is set out on the religious persecution page.

Applicants who came to Australia to study make up a large part of this caseload. Their position is dealt with in the articles on Indonesian students and the Subclass 866 protection visa and on evidence in LGBTI Indonesian student protection claims.

Who can lodge a Subclass 866 application, and who cannot

To make a valid application, the applicant must be in Australia, must complete Form 866, must put forward reasons for claiming protection or be a member of the family unit of a person who does, must provide a residential address, must provide personal identifiers including a photograph and fingerprints when required to do so, must pay the visa application charge, and must not be affected by an application bar. Those requirements come from the form itself and from the application provisions of the Act and the Regulations.

Two bars stop an application before it starts. Section 48A prevents a person who has already had a protection visa application refused in Australia from making another protection visa application while they remain in Australia. Only the Minister can lift that bar, by exercising the personal and non-compellable power in section 48B. Section 46A prevents a person who arrived as an unauthorised maritime arrival from making a valid application unless the Minister personally lifts the bar. Neither bar is common in the Indonesian caseload, which is overwhelmingly made up of people who arrived lawfully by air, but both must be checked before anything is lodged.

Identity is the third threshold issue. Under sections 91W and 91WA, an applicant who refuses to provide documentary evidence of identity, nationality or citizenship, or who provides a bogus document, without a reasonable explanation must have an unfavourable inference drawn about their credibility. Most Indonesian applicants hold a genuine passport, so this is usually straightforward, but it is not to be assumed.

Why a no further stay condition does not stop an Indonesian applicant

Condition 8503 does not prevent a protection visa application. The condition, in Schedule 8 to the Migration Regulations 1994, provides that the holder will not, after entering Australia, be entitled to be granted a substantive visa, other than a protection visa, while the holder remains in Australia. The exception for protection visas is written into the wording of the condition. Condition 8534 and condition 8535, which appear on student visas including visas granted to foreign government sponsored and Defence students, carve out protection visas in exactly the same way. Condition 8540, which can appear on a Subclass 462 Work and Holiday visa, does the same.

This matters because condition 8503 is mandatory on several streams of the Subclass 600 visitor visa, including the sponsored family and frequent traveller streams, and Indonesian nationals hold a great many visitor visas. An applicant with condition 8503 needs no waiver under subregulation 2.05(4) and does not need to leave Australia to apply for protection. What the condition blocks is an onshore partner, student or skilled application, which is a different problem with a different solution.

The section 48 bar is also not an obstacle. Section 48 prevents a person in Australia without a substantive visa, who has had a visa refused or cancelled since last entering, from applying for most visas. Protection visas remain available. A refused student visa application or a cancelled visitor visa therefore does not close this pathway. The position of visitor visa holders specifically is dealt with in the article on applying for protection from a tourist visa.

One warning belongs with all of this. The fact that a protection visa is the only application a person can still make is not a reason to make one. An application lodged because every other door has closed will be refused, and it will engage the section 48A bar for the future.

How the application is lodged, step by step

Protection visa applications are lodged online through ImmiAccount. The Department's page for the visa states that they must be lodged online, and Form 866 records online lodgement as the Department's preferred method, with the visa application charge paid electronically through ImmiAccount. A person who has never used the system will find guidance in the article on how to create an ImmiAccount.

The general sequence for any onshore protection application is set out in the Subclass 866 protection visa guide. The order of work matters, and for an Indonesian LGBT application it runs as follows.

First, the threshold check. How the applicant entered Australia, whether they were immigration cleared, whether section 48A or section 46A applies, what visa they currently hold and when it expires, and whether their identity documents are genuine and available. If the current visa is close to expiry, that timing governs everything that follows.

Second, the claim. Which ground or grounds apply, what harm is feared, from whom, in which part of Indonesia, and why the authorities will not protect the applicant.

Third, the statement and the supporting material. The applicant's own account, prepared in a clear chronology, together with the documents and country information that corroborate it.

Fourth, lodgement. Form 866 is completed and submitted in ImmiAccount with the statement and documents attached, and the charge is paid. Everyone included in the application must be declared at that point. Members of the family unit who are in Australia may be included in the same application.

Fifth, biometrics. An applicant who has not previously provided personal identifiers will be asked to attend an office of the Department to have them collected. The form warns that failure to comply with a request for biometrics collection will make the application invalid. This is a genuine trap, because the request arrives by email after lodgement and is easy to miss.

What has to be in the application on the day it is lodged

Everything the applicant wants considered should be in the application when it is lodged. The form states the position in terms: all claims for protection and supporting documentation and evidence should be provided when the application is lodged, a decision may be made on the information provided in the written application, and the applicant may not be given another opportunity to present those claims.

That instruction is backed by the Act. Section 5AAA provides that it is the applicant who must specify all particulars of their claim, and that the decision maker does not have any responsibility to establish or assist in establishing the claim. A delegate may invite further information under section 56, and must invite comment on certain adverse information under section 57, but neither provision is a safety net that an applicant can plan around. An Indonesian application built on the assumption that the interview will be the opportunity to explain everything is an application that has already given away its best chance.

A complete Indonesian LGBT application contains Form 866, the passport and any national identity card, the written statement, the corroborating material the applicant actually holds, country information addressing the particular region and risk, and a legal submission applying sections 5H, 5J, 5L and 36(2)(aa) to the facts.

What the written statement has to do

The statement is the evidence. It is the applicant's own account of their life and their fear, and it is the document the delegate reads first and returns to last. My Migration Lawyers prepares the statement with the client, from the client's instructions, and the client reads, corrects and approves it before it is signed. The claims advanced are the client's claims and the decision about which claims are advanced is the client's decision.

A statement in an Indonesian sexuality based claim has to do specific work. It gives a chronology, with dates, places and names where they are known. It explains the applicant's own understanding of their sexual orientation or gender identity in their own words, because the Department's guidelines direct officers to explore self-realisation, a sense of difference or shame, concealment, disclosure, and exclusion from family and community. It identifies who in Indonesia knows and what they did about it. It deals with the family directly, because in this caseload the family is often the first agent of harm and the reason state protection is unavailable. It says why relocation is not an answer, and it confronts the weaknesses in the file rather than leaving them to be found.

The Department's guidance is explicit that a person may identify as LGBTIQ+ without ever having been in a same-sex relationship, and that a marriage, a former opposite-sex relationship or children do not mean the applicant is not LGBTIQ+, provided the applicant can give a consistent and reasonable explanation. Many Indonesian applicants are in exactly that position and the explanation belongs in the statement.

How Indonesian language documents and evidence must be handled

Documents that are not in English should be accompanied by an English translation completed by a translator certified by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. The Form 866 instructions say so, and the Department's processing guidelines record that a NAATI certified translation must carry the translator's stamp and practitioner identification number.

This affects almost every Indonesian file, because the material that actually corroborates these claims is in Indonesian: messages, social media posts, a family member's letter, a police report, a local news item, a mosque or church communication, a medical record, a letter of dismissal from employment. If the translation is missing, a delegate may write under section 56(2) and ask for one within a set period, and if it does not arrive the delegate may proceed without considering that document. Material that is never read cannot help.

The Department asks for colour scans of the original document and of the translation. Where certified copies are required, certification must be by a person authorised under the Statutory Declarations Regulations.

What the Department is directed to ask, and what it must not ask

The Department's own processing guidelines for protection visas contain detailed directions on LGBTIQ+ claims, and applicants are entitled to know what they say. Officers are directed not to ask whether something happened to make the applicant LGBTIQ+, why the applicant chose to be LGBTIQ+, whether the applicant can change their behaviour to avoid harm, whether the applicant can prove they are LGBTIQ+, any question about the details of sexual activity, or detailed questions about traumatic events, particularly those involving sexual violence.

Officers are also directed not to project their own cultural expectations onto an applicant. The guidelines record that a legal error may arise if an officer finds an applicant is not LGBTIQ+ because the applicant does not conform to the officer's expectations of how an LGBTIQ+ person should appear or behave, in dress, mannerisms or speech, and that a lack of knowledge of gay and lesbian culture or venues in Australia should never be used to justify rejecting a claim. Applicants who use derogatory words about themselves, because those are the only words available in their language, are not to be treated as less credible for it.

What officers are directed to explore is the applicant's own experience: self-realisation, difference, concealment, disclosure, family response, attempts to conform, and mistreatment. A statement organised around those themes answers the questions the delegate has been trained to ask.

How the interview works, and why the interpreter matters in Indonesian claims

Most protection applicants are interviewed, and in a sexuality based claim the interview is usually decisive. The guidelines direct officers to give an assurance of confidentiality at the start, to explain that interpreters are bound by confidentiality, to begin with biographical questions before moving to the claim, to allow breaks, and to avoid rushing. Where gender related claims are made, every effort is to be made for the interviewing officer and the interpreter to be of the same sex as the applicant, or of the gender with which the applicant identifies.

The interpreter is a live issue in Indonesian files. The guidelines record that care must be taken to ensure the interpreter uses appropriate terminology to convey complex concepts accurately, and the country report records that terms such as LGBT are taboo in Indonesia or used as an insult. An applicant who is afraid of the interpreter, or who believes the interpreter disapproves, will not give their evidence properly. Concerns should be raised at the time and on the record, not after the decision. What the interview involves generally is set out on the protection visa interview page.

There is one further procedural point that is specific to this caseload. Where an applicant is included in a family member's application and makes sexuality or gender related claims, the guidelines record that the applicant may nominate a separate address for correspondence, and that officers should inform applicants of the consequences of remaining on a combined application, including that another applicant on the same application may later receive sensitive information. Any Indonesian applicant whose spouse, sibling or parent is on the same application should be advised of that before lodgement, not after.

What happens to immigration status, work and travel while the application is pending

A protection visa applicant may be eligible for a bridging visa, and which bridging visa is granted, and on what conditions, is determined primarily by the applicant's immigration status at the time the protection application is lodged. That is the reason the timing advice given at the first consultation is not administrative detail. An applicant who lodges while still holding a substantive visa is in a materially different position from one who lodges after becoming unlawful.

Work rights are not automatic. Condition 8101, the no work condition, may be imposed on a bridging visa, and to obtain a bridging visa without it an applicant may need to demonstrate a compelling need to work as defined in regulation 1.08, and in the case of a Bridging E visa held in association with a protection application, an acceptable reason for the delay in applying for the protection visa. Delay in lodging is therefore not a neutral choice. It can cost an applicant the right to support themselves for the length of the process. The consequences of a late application are dealt with in the article on delay in a Subclass 866 application.

Travel is the other live risk. Clause 866.411 of the Migration Regulations requires the applicant to be in Australia when the visa is granted, so departure while the application is pending puts the application itself at risk, and most bridging visas do not permit travel at all. Separately, returning voluntarily to Indonesia while claiming to fear return to Indonesia is very difficult to reconcile with a well-founded fear, and a decision maker will treat it accordingly. This applies to a short trip for a family funeral just as it applies to a holiday.

Can an Indonesian applicant be told to relocate to Jakarta or Bali instead?

Not where safety in that location would depend on concealment. Under section 5J(1)(c) the real chance of persecution must relate to all areas of the receiving country, and under section 36(2B)(a) there is taken to be no real risk of significant harm if it would be reasonable for the person to relocate to an area where there would be no such risk. Relocation is therefore a real question in Indonesian files, and it is usually raised, because the Department's own guidelines note that in LGBTIQ+ cases the most likely relocation option is a move to a major city with an established community.

The limit on that reasoning is set out in the same guidelines. Officers cannot find that an applicant can move to another area if their safety there is contingent on other people not being aware of their sexual orientation or gender identity, or if it would require them to modify their behaviour in any way, because that would be contrary to section 5J(3). The guidelines also direct that relocation should not be relied on if the applicant would be safe from harm on sexuality grounds in the new area but could face harm there on different grounds, and that where legal or social acceptance has changed recently, officers should consider whether it may swing back.

Section 5J(3) is the provision behind all of this. A person does not have a well-founded fear if they could take reasonable steps to modify their behaviour to avoid a real chance of persecution, but the exceptions in paragraphs 5J(3)(a), (b) and (c) apply where modification would conflict with a characteristic fundamental to identity or conscience, would conceal an innate or immutable characteristic, or would require the person to alter or conceal their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. The Department's guidelines state that where an exception applies the applicant cannot be asked to modify their behaviour, and that a person who is discreet is not choosing privacy when fear of harm is forcing the secrecy. A relocation argument that depends on living quietly in Jakarta is the argument section 5J(3) is designed to defeat.

What happens if the Department refuses the application

A refusal is notified in writing with a decision record, and it is reviewable by the Administrative Review Tribunal. The time limit for applying for review of a protection visa refusal is short, it runs from the day the applicant is taken to have received the decision rather than the day it was read, and the Tribunal has no power to extend it. That deadline is the single most important date in the matter, and it is missed by applicants who were waiting for a lawyer, waiting for money, or waiting for a translation.

Review before the Tribunal is a fresh hearing on the merits. The Tribunal considers the case as it stands at the time of its decision, so evidence that did not exist or was not provided at the Department stage can be put before it, and the applicant will normally be invited to a hearing. That is an advantage, and it is also the reason a refusal is not the end of an Indonesian claim that was properly made. What review cannot repair is a claim that was never articulated, because the Tribunal will be asked why the applicant said nothing about it for so long. How review works is set out on the protection visa refusals page, and in more detail in the Subclass 866 refusal and Tribunal guide.

The mistake that cannot be undone

There is one error in this area that has no remedy, and it is lodging a weak first application. Section 48A prevents a further protection visa application in Australia once one has been refused. Lifting that bar requires the Minister to exercise the personal and non-compellable power in section 48B, which is exercised rarely and which no person can compel or appeal.

The practical consequence is that a first application is not a free attempt. An Indonesian applicant who lodges a bare form with no statement, in order to obtain a bridging visa or to buy time, and who is then refused, has not delayed a problem. They have used up the only protection application they will be permitted to make while they remain in Australia, and they have done it before the claim was ever put.

Who in Indonesia learns about the application

The application is made to the Australian Government, and My Migration Lawyers does not contact Indonesian authorities, an applicant's family, an employer, a university or a sponsor in the course of preparing or running a protection matter. The Department's guidelines direct officers to give applicants an assurance of confidentiality at the start of an interview and to explain that interpreters are bound by confidentiality as well. Where a person is included on a family member's application, the guidelines contemplate a separate correspondence address so that sensitive claims do not reach other applicants on the same file.

Section 91X of the Migration Act supports this at the other end of the process. It requires the High Court, the Federal Court and the Federal Circuit and Family Court not to publish the name of a person who has applied for a protection visa in connection with proceedings relating to that application.

None of this removes every risk an applicant may feel. Material an applicant posts publicly, or shares with people in contact with family in Indonesia, is outside anyone's control. That is a reason to think about what is posted, not a reason to withhold the claim from the Department.

What the visa provides once it is granted

A Subclass 866 protection visa is a permanent visa. It is granted as permanent residence from the date of grant. The holder may live in Australia indefinitely, work without restriction, study, access Medicare, and in time apply for Australian citizenship if the citizenship requirements are met. Members of the family unit who were included in the application and who are in Australia are considered with it.

There is one restriction that surprises people. A protection visa holder needs the permission of the Australian Government before travelling to the country from which they were protected. A grant on the basis of a fear of Indonesia is not a grant of freedom to visit Indonesia.

An applicant in a relationship with an Australian citizen or permanent resident may also have a partner visa pathway, and same-sex couples are treated identically to any other couple for that purpose. The two are assessed on entirely different criteria and are not interchangeable. The partner pathway is explained on the same-sex partner visa page.

The mistakes that cost Indonesian applicants their applications

The recurring errors in this caseload are procedural rather than legal, and they are avoidable.

Lodging a form without a statement. The form is not the claim. An application with no written account is an application the delegate can refuse on the papers.

Letting a bridging visa or biometrics request go unanswered. A missed request for personal identifiers can invalidate the application outright.

Saying something different from what was said earlier. A reason for coming to Australia given in a student or visitor application that cannot be reconciled with the protection claim will be put to the applicant, and it has to be addressed in the statement before the Department raises it.

Signing something the applicant has not read. The Department warns applicants not to sign blank pages or documents, and reminds them that they are responsible for the claims made in the form even if someone else completed it. In this caseload that warning is not theoretical.

Waiting. Delay narrows the options on work rights, weakens the account of urgency, and in the case of a person whose visa is expiring, converts a straightforward application into an unlawful status problem.

When My Migration Lawyers will advise an Indonesian client not to apply

Advice that an application should not be made is part of the service, and it is given. Where the facts do not support a claim under section 36(2)(a) or section 36(2)(aa), a protection application is not a holding strategy. It is a refusal, a permanent entry on the immigration record, and a section 48A bar on any further protection application while the person remains in Australia. Where another visa pathway is available and appropriate, that is said clearly at the first consultation rather than after a refusal.

How the firm acts in protection matters generally is set out on the protection visa lawyers page. That position also protects clients who do have a claim, because it is the reason an application that is lodged is an application that has been tested first.

How My Migration Lawyers runs an Indonesian LGBT protection matter

Protection matters at My Migration Lawyers are conducted by Weiwei Zhang, Principal Lawyer, and the work on an Indonesian file is organised in a fixed order.

The first consultation deals with threshold issues: entry and immigration clearance, current visa and expiry date, section 48A and section 46A, identity documents, and any no further application condition. The claim is then identified against section 5H, section 5J, section 5L and section 36(2)(aa), and the client is told which grounds the facts support and which they do not.

The statement is prepared from the client's instructions and in the client's own account of events. The client reads it, corrects it and approves it before signing, and the client decides which claims are advanced. Country information is applied to the client's own region, community and circumstances rather than to Indonesia in general, and Indonesian language material is translated by a NAATI certified translator before lodgement. The application is lodged in ImmiAccount with the statement, the evidence and a legal submission attached, and bridging visa and work rights consequences are dealt with at the same time.

The client is then prepared for the interview, including what the delegate may ask, what the delegate has been directed not to ask, and how to raise a problem with an interpreter on the record. If a decision is unfavourable, the review deadline is calculated from the notification and the review application is prepared.

The firm acts for clients across Australia and consultations are conducted by video. To start, request a consultation or contact My Migration Lawyers.