Ministerial intervention is the Minister for Immigration's personal power, under section 351 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), to replace a decision of the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) with one more favourable to the applicant, and a person can ask for it in writing only after the Tribunal has decided their case. For a Carer visa family, the Minister's Instructions of 17 September 2025 contain a referral criterion written for carers, and its first element is a Carer Visa Assessment Certificate with a rating of at least 30.
The carer criterion: Instructions para 13.1.4
- Evidence that you are the carer of an Australian citizen who needs care.
- A Carer Visa Assessment Certificate with a minimum impairment rating of 30.
- Evidence that the person needing care has no Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen family members permanently living in Australia.
- Evidence that care services are otherwise unavailable to the person because care providers deny access.
What is ministerial intervention?
Ministerial intervention is a request to the Minister to use the public interest power in section 351, which lets the Minister personally substitute a more favourable decision for a decision of the ART (s 351(1) and (3)).
The Department's ministerial intervention page (updated 23 September 2025) calls the power "non-delegable and non-compellable": only the Minister can use it, and the Minister is not required to consider a request. What is in the public interest is for the Minister to decide (Instructions para 3.2). When the Minister does act, section 351(2) frees the decision from the visa criteria in the Regulations but not from the rest of the Act, and each decision is tabled in Parliament without the applicant's name (s 351(4) and (5)).
The page also says that requests "do not form part of the statutory visa application process". A request is not an appeal, and it carries no right to a decision.
When can a Carer visa family ask for ministerial intervention?
A Carer visa family can ask for ministerial intervention only after the ART has made a decision on the review, because that decision is what gives the Minister the power (Instructions para 4.1).
The power is not available if there is no tribunal decision, if a court has quashed the decision, if the Tribunal sent the case back and the Department has decided it again, or if a Minister has already intervened (para 4.2). Decisions of the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal still count (para 3.4).
When a request is not referred
Paragraph 12.1 of the Instructions lists requests the Department finalises without sending them to the Minister. For a Carer visa family, the ones that matter are:
- a request already pending for the same person;
- a repeat request made within 2 years of the Department telling you that a Minister declined an earlier one (paras 11.1 and 11.2);
- a person who is unlawful, could apply for a bridging visa and has not done so;
- a person outside Australia who has departed Australia;
- a person with a visa application or a merits review still under way.
Which circumstances does the Minister look for?
The Minister looks for requests that meet at least one of the 10 criteria in section 13 of the Instructions, and criterion 13.1.4 covers the carer of an Australian citizen who needs care.
The carer criterion, in the checklist above, is narrower than the Carer visa itself in two ways. It covers the carer of an Australian citizen only, not a permanent resident. And it asks for evidence that the person needing care has no citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen family members permanently living in Australia, rather than none who could reasonably give the care.
Criterion 13.1.1, for the parent of an Australian citizen or permanent resident child who was a minor when the request was made, may also fit some carer families.
Meeting a criterion leads only to referral. Even then, the Minister may decline to consider the request, or consider it and decline to grant a visa (para 9.1).
How do you make a ministerial intervention request for a Carer visa?
You make a ministerial intervention request for a Carer visa in writing, online through the Contact the Minister form or by post, naming the power, the Tribunal decision and the section 13 criterion you rely on (Instructions para 6.3).
- Firstly, find the ART decision date and reference number.
- Secondly, choose the criterion (13.1.4 for carers) and gather evidence for each element of it.
- Thirdly, write the request, naming every person it covers. Family members can be included only if they also had a tribunal decision.
- Fourthly, attach certified copies of supporting documents and accurate English translations of anything not in English, which the Department says should be done by a translator accredited by NAATI.
- Fifthly, lodge it online, or post it to the address on the Department's page: Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, PO Box 6022, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.
- Sixthly, answer any request for a health examination, police clearances or other information (para 8.11).
A registered migration agent or lawyer acting for you lodges Form 956. To have documents sent to someone else, use Form 956A.
How long does ministerial intervention take?
Ministerial intervention takes no set time, because the Department says the Minister "is not bound by any timeframes", and no processing time is published.
The Department tells you when a request is finalised, and why, or the outcome once a referred request has been dealt with (para 10). For a Carer visa there is one more wait. If the Minister does intervene, the yearly cap on Other Family visas still applies (s 86), and the Regulations provide a Bridging visa E for a person whose grant is held up by the cap (cl 050.212(6AA)).
On 4 September 2025, the Minister also made personal procedural decisions declining to consider further the requests lodged before that date, apart from those already under the Minister's personal consideration, listed in an annexure or in a class to be referred. A person whose request was finalised that way can make a new request, which is assessed under the new Instructions.
Can an 836 applicant stay while the Minister considers it?
An 836 applicant can stay while the Minister considers a first request by applying for a Bridging visa E, because the Regulations provide one for a person whose onshore application is the subject of a first section 351 request (cl 050.212(6) of the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth)).
The Bridging visa A linked to the 836 ends 35 days after the ART decides (cl 010.511(1)(b)(iii)). The Instructions expect a person in the community to be lawful when the request is made and to stay lawful until it is finalised (para 5.4), and a person who is unlawful and could apply for a bridging visa but has not is not referred (para 12.1.3). The Minister also expects the person to keep making arrangements to leave Australia while the request is progressed (para 5.5.3).
A 116 applicant is outside Australia and has no bridging visa question. How paragraph 12.1.5 treats a 116 applicant who never entered Australia is not stated in the Instructions.
What if the section 48 bar also applies?
The section 48 bar does not stop the Minister, because section 351(2) frees the Minister from Subdivision AA of Division 3 of Part 2 of the Act, which is where section 48 sits.
An 836 applicant refused in Australia cannot lodge a new Carer application while in Australia, because the section 48 bar allows only the visas listed in regulation 2.12, and the Carer visa's class is not on the list. Ministerial intervention is one of the few routes that the bar does not close. The Instructions add that a person with an onshore visa pathway still open is generally not an appropriate case for the Minister (para 5.3), which is a different point: the bar closes the Carer pathway, but it does not close every pathway.
If ministerial intervention fails, what is left for a Carer visa family?
If ministerial intervention fails, the route left for a Carer visa family is a new subclass 116 application made from outside Australia, and the Minister's stated expectation is that a person not granted a visa through the process will leave Australia (Instructions para 5.1).
A second request to the Minister within 2 years of a declined one is a repeat request and is not referred (para 11.2). A new 116 application starts again with a new charge and a new queue date, and if it is refused, the Carer visa appeal is again the step that gives the Minister power to act. Before any of these steps, an agent or lawyer can check which route is still open. The refusal grounds and every earlier step are on the page on common grounds and your next step, and the rest of the guide is at Carer Visa Australia.
A registered professional makes a grant more likely
A registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner makes a referable request more likely, because the Department finalises any request that misses a section 13 criterion without sending it to the Minister. For carers, each element of criterion 13.1.4, from the certificate rating of 30 to proof that care providers deny access, needs its own evidence.
Ask about your caseRead next
Carer visa refusal: why Carer visas are refused and what comes nextEach refusal names a failed criterion, and the ART clock starts at notification.
Carer visa appeal at the Administrative Review TribunalThe carer lodges for an 836; the sponsor lodges for a 116.
The section 48 bar and the 836 Carer visa: applying after a refusalRefused onshore with no substantive visa? The 836 is closed; the 116 is not.
Do you need a migration agent for a Carer visa?Families can lodge alone, but paid help must come from agents or lawyers.