Government Deporting a 96 Year Old Grandmother?

[Ktee]

Or not? Yesterday most of Australia was up in arms about an elderly lady being refused her contributory parent visa and it was all across the media that she was to be sent back to the UK even though she has no family or friends there. The visa refusal was because she would be a drain on the health system, I mean come on I don't want to sound awful but how can a 96 year old be a drain on the system it's not as though she has another 50 years left in her to claim:sad:

Any way today there was another article from Chris Bowen in the paper which I've copied below, so what I want to know are they letting her stay or not:mad:

 

 

 

The federal government insists it has no plans to deport an ailing 96-year-old British woman being cared for by family in Tasmania.

Gladys Jefferson has been living with her daughter in northern Tasmania's White Hills since moving from the Isle of Wight last year.

She entered Australia on a tourist visa but the Department of Immigration and Citizenship subsequently rejected her contributory parent visa application.

But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says Ms Jefferson now has a new visa application before the department and has hit back at reports claiming the government plans to deport her.

"The Australian government is not deporting nor even considering deporting Mrs Gladys Jefferson," he said in a statement.

"While I would normally not comment on a case where there is a visa application before the department, the seriousness of the false reporting has meant that it is important that I clarify the public record.

"There are no plans to remove her whatsoever."

Mr Bowen said his department was providing information to Mrs Jefferson and her family on "pathways" that would allow her to stay in the country lawfully.

But Mr Bowen did concede Mrs Jefferson's latest visa application would not necessarily be successful.

"While we sympathise with the family's circumstances, people wanting to migrate to Australia must meet visa requirements - including the health requirement - for the department to be able to lawfully grant them a visa."

Mr Bowen also took aim at the Australian Greens' immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young, who accused the government of "picking on the sick and the elderly".

"Women like Gladys should not have to live out the final years of their life separated from their family simply because we have a government that wants to look like they are meaner than they actually need to be," Senator Hanson-Young told reporters in Adelaide.

Mr Bowen said: "Senator Hanson-Young might wish to check the facts for herself before commenting, rather than relying on erroneous news reports."

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Ktee

 

Many thanks for this information. My own mother has a Contributory Parent visa that was granted nearly 5 years ago when she was almost 85, so I am particularly interested to hear about Mrs Jefferson. Minister Bowen's formal media release about her is here:

 

http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/cb/2011/cb170139.htm

 

Like a lot of these things, the information provided by Minister Bowen and the newspaper is incomplete, which makes it very difficult to pass any accurate comment.

 

This case seems to have made it into the British newspapers today as well:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8694209/Great-grandmother-96-to-be-deported-from-Australia.html

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024435/Briton-Gladys-Jefferson-96-kicked-Australia-welfare-burden.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

There is zero doubt that Minister Bowen is telling the truth. There is no way that the Australian Government would try to throw Mrs Jefferson out of Australia so the media are whipping up a frenzy about something that is really only a storm in a teacup.

 

The visa elements of this are quite technical so I won't drone on about the visa details unless somebody asks me to explain them.

 

It sounds as if everything possible is now being done to reassure Mrs Jefferson and her family that what has allegedly happened is a set-back, not a disaster. There are LOADS of things that can be done to ensure that Mrs Jefferson does not suffer any sort of disadvantage. However, has it taken media intervention on both sides of the world in order to insist that the Australian Government and the civil servants whom it employs must act REASONABLY and SENSIBLY and that all of them must be seen to be doing both?

 

It is unusual for the Minister of Immi to make public statements about individual situations like this one. I suspect that the Department got him to make a statement to deflect the sorts of flak that they got about Mrs Agha and then Dr Moeller.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1450131.htm

 

http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/media-releases/2008/ce08113.htm

 

I am surprised that the Manager of the Parents Visa Centre does not seem to have acted with more sensitivity in Mrs Jefferson's case. It is cloth eared just to send out DIAC's standard template letters without, apparently, doing anything about arranging competent pastoral and legal care for the recipients of the standard letters in cases like that of Mrs Jefferson. I'd have expected better from DIAC about this than Mrs Jefferson and her family seem to have received from DIAC on this occasion.

 

This guy Bowen. Does he want his Party to win the next General Election, I wonder? If he does, why hasn't he pushed Andrew Metcalfe harder to make the DIAC properly touchy-feely for the Australians who pay the salaries of all of DIAC's staff? Mrs Jefferson did not reach Australia on some decrepit old tub of a leaky refugee boat, after all.

 

Cheers

 

Gill