I am not a visa officer, nor am I migration agent. I am in no way affiliated with the Australian Embassy Manila nor with the Australian government. This post comes from my experience with preparing and submitting visa applications for family members and for myself. This is also written mainly for Filipinos applying for an Australian visa within the Philippines.
I’ve been getting quite a lot of inquiries about how to apply for an Australian visa so after a year of this post being in the draft, I’m finally writing it (with hopes of finishing it within 2 hours).
1. Download and read the necessary forms and documents for your visa class.
Everything you need to know about Australian visas are in the official Australian Immigration website at www.immi.gov.au. If you’re just going to visit Australia as a tourist, you fall under Tourist Visa (Subclass 676). The corresponding documents for this visa subclass are:
All files are in PDF format and would require Adobe Reader to open.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship of Australia regularly review and update their visa-related documents and requirements. It’s important that you have the latest edition for your reference, as well as the forms you will fill in.
2. Collect the documents needed and make copies of each.
The documents needed for every tourist visa application are listed in the forms. Once you have completed the documents, start filling in the forms. When filling out the form, carefully read the instructions and questions.
The Australian visa application requires you to pay a visa application fee of AU$100. There is an online conversion tool in the immigration website that shows the rate in your currency. The fee must be paid with a manager’s or cashier’s check issued by your bank for the Australian Embassy. Once you have completed your documents, filled in the form and acquired the manager’s check, make copies of everything. Seperate the originals and the copies.
3. Call the Australian Embassy hotline.
The hotline numbers to call for visa application pick up in the Philippines are as follows:
For PLDT/Smart/Touchcard Subscribers 1 (909) 362 – 2779
For Globe/Innove/Touchmobile Subscribers 1 (900) 362 – 2779
For Bayantel Subscribers 1 (903) 362 – 2779
This is considered a long-distance call, so brace yourself for the ginormous phone bill (Php 32 per minute). The hotline is available Mondays to Fridays, 6am – 8pm, and Saturdays, 8am to 6pm. If you are just calling to inquire about the visa application process, you can call the free hotline at (02) 845-9200.
Schedule for a visa pick up. The agent will ask you questions about your application, so better have your documents with you for reference. After the question and answer portion, the agent will then give you instructions regarding the pick-up and return of your documents. You are encouraged to be there when the FedEx guy picks up the documents. By the way, the courier fee is not included in the Australian visa application fee, so be ready to fork out around Php 300 for Mr. FedEx. This fee covers both the pick up and return delivery.
4. Start the agonizing wait for denial or approval.
Visa processing can take from three days to one month. The shortest visa processing we had was three days, I think, and the longest was one month. That one month was due to the high influx of visa applications, as my sister applied on the last week of November. Apparently, a lot of Filipinos are applying for visas during this time (probably hoping to spend Christmas in Australia with their families).
So there you have it! I hope this is helpful in someways. If you have any questions, just post them in the comments area, and I’ll try to answer as best as I can 
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