Australian High Commission Malaysia New Announcement on Electronic Travel Authority (ETA)
Australian High Commission Malaysia New Announcement on Electronic Travel Authority (ETA)
Malaysians who wished to travel to Australia is required to apply for Electronic Travel Authority or better known as ETA. ETA is equivalent to visa and it is electronically stored and link to a passport number.
The ETA allows Malaysians to visit Australia for tourism or business visitor activity as many times as you want for up to one year. You can also stay up to three month per visit for tourism and business visitor activity.
In recent years, many Malaysians have abused ETA and went to work in Australia illegally and hence overstayed.
Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia, Andrew Goledzinowski AM twitted a few hours ago that Malaysian is currently number one in working illegally and overstayed in Australia.
No system is perfect. But it works. And it’s not about “profiling”. ATM, M’sia is one of only 4 countries in Asia that get visas online (ETAs). We want to maintain that status. But it means we HAVE to pay attention to who is coming to 🇦🇺 and for what purpose.
— Andrew Goledzinowski (@AusHCMalaysia) August 8, 2019
He also mentioned that Malaysia is one of four countries in Asia that can get Visa online (ETA) and he want to maintain the status.
If the trend continues, there is possibility that Malaysians will lose the benefits of ETA in the future in our opinion.
Australia High Commission Malaysia also posted new update on Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) page on 7th August 2019
An ETA is not designed to allow repeated extended stays in Australia. Persons wishing to spend long periods in Australia for tourism or other non-work purposes may wish to consider applying for a Visitor visa (subclass 600) or an alternative visa that better suits their purposes. ETA holders spending long periods in Australia amounting to de facto residence risk having their visa cancelled and being refused entry to Australia.
The same passport used to obtain an ETA must be used to travel to Australia. If your passport has changed, you will need to apply for a new ETA.
We recommend that you do not make travel arrangements or commitments until you have received advice that you have been granted a visa.
Updated 7 August 2019. Please note: due to increased demand the processing time for ETA applications lodged by email is three weeks.
Like we mentioned in our previous blogposts on this issue, please make sure you apply your Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) at least one or two months ahead. Please don’t apply ETA last minute and do not make any travel arrangements or commitments before you get your visa.
ETA applications by email usually happened when your first ETA application is rejected. Thus, you need three weeks for them to approve your ETA application with all the right documents provided to them. Any mistake or lack of documents for ETA application will delay the process. That is the reason why we kept on reminding travellers to apply at least one to two months before your travel to Australia. It is safe than sorry.
We have friends who got their ETA rejected and they have to ‘burn’ their air tickets and other expenses. Please apply your ETA early if you plan to visit Australia. We hope this will help you to plan your next travel to Australia. Thanks for reading.
