Question re immigration

[ratters2005]

Question re immigration

have a relative who is living in the uk and needs family support due to his new and life changing disability.

He is financially independent but needs support.

Is there a way we can sponsor him and have him live in oz?

We are PR and 10 months away from being naturalized.

Any comments would be appreciated...

[Gollywobbler]

Question re immigration

have a relative who is living in the uk and needs family support due to his new and life changing disability.

He is financially independent but needs support.

Is there a way we can sponsor him and have him live in oz?

We are PR and 10 months away from being naturalized.

Any comments would be appreciated...

 

Hello Ratters

 

I will ask the Mods to split your query and this reply into a separate thread because it is not fair on KarenR if thee and me hijack her thread, in which she is asking a completely different question about another matter. Don't stress about this, though - the Mods on internet forums are quite used to splitting threads in this way. It is just a minor admin task that doesn't take more than a minute to do.

 

There are two separate issues in your question, being:-

 

1. Is there a visa that your relative would be eligible for? amd

 

2. If there is a suitable visa, would he be OK on the Health requirement for it?

 

The second question is academic unless there is a suitable visa in the first place. There are 148 visas for Australia but none of them carter for the possibility that an Aussie might want to import a disabled relative just because the relative is in another country, has become disabled and needs family support that the Aussie feels best-able to provide. That idea has never featured on the Government Radar and I oon't know whether it ever will, although I think (hope) that there might be a glimmer of optimism on this front sometime in the future but probably not for at least another 5 years and maybe longr than that.

 

In 2008, the Joint Standing Committee on Mogration (JSCM) was asked to consider the Migration Treatment of Dsability. At the moment, the Health requirement treats disability in the same way as it treats a contagious disease. This is at odds with the sprit of the CRPD, which is the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. After a lengthy and detailed investigation, the JSCM produced a hard-hitting Report in June 2010, entitled Enabling Australia:

 

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/mig/disability/report.htm

 

According to the JSCM, disability should no longer be allowed to act as a cirtual or actual barrier to the Rights of a Disabled Person to move between countries in the same way as someone who does not have a disability. In other words, the JSCM concurred with the UN's view about this.

 

The JSCM Report was tabled in Parliament about a month before the last General Election was called. So far, there has been no formal Response from the Government.

 

My friend George Lombard is a Registered Migration Agent in Sydney:

 

http://austimmigration.com.au/site/?q=node/1

 

George has stacks of experience, is very brainy and he is particularly interested in the subject of the migration Health requirement. The JSCM have strongly recommended a wholesale change to this requirement and the philosophy behind it. The JSCM is very influential - the Government usually follows their recommendations. So in July 2010, I asked George what is likely to happen next and asked whther he is able to guess how long it might take?

 

George said that although the JSCM is very infliential, it often takes several years for their recommendations to be implemented, the Government doesn't usually implement every recommendation and George thinks that DIAC's own attitude is equally influential. DIAC told the JSCM that DIAC favour relaxing the Health requirement but DIAC recommend that it should happen via the Government granting a greater degree of discretion about it to DIAC. Nobofy excpet DIAC favoured that notion and the JSCM ignored DIAC's proposal completely. George said that DIAC have been known to dig their heels in and to become very obstructive if they are not allowed to have their own way. Apparently they were very difficult about implementing the JSCM;s recommendations about the treatment of persons held in the Immigration Detention Centres.

 

So George's opinion was that it would easily take 5 years before anything changes and it might take considerably longer and, indeed, it might never happen. I trust George and I respect his opinions completely - I had hoped that he would be more optimistic but he is a native-born Aussie who has always kept a close eye on Immigration Law and DIAC's performance over the years. Also, this topic is so emotive that one would think Joolya would want to Respond promptly - but her Government's silence so far does support George's caution.

 

I think you just need to keep watching the JSCM's space.... As soon as the Government produces a formal Response, it will be published on the JSCM website and there will also be a lot of attention in the media.

 

Meanwhile, the whole thing might be academic for the time being unless there is already a visa that your relative would be eligible for. There are 3 Streams of permanent migration - they are the Skillled Stream, the Family Stream and the Humabitarian Stream. As a matter of long-standing Government policy, the Skilled Stream accounts for 70% of the PR visas that Australia grants every year. The Family Stream usually gets about 20% of the annual total and the Humanitarian Stream (Refugees and Asylum Seekers) usually get about 10%.

 

Clearly, we can forget about the Humanitarian Stream since your relative lives in the UK.

 

In the Family Stream, is he the Parent or step-parent of one of you? If so, would he be OK on the Balance of Family Test for Parent migration?

 

If he is not a Parent, is he a near relative (eh a sibgling?) If so, would he be eligible for a Remaining Relative visa?

 

If neither of these possibilities would fit the bill, is he aged 55 or over and is he wealthy enough for an Investor Retirement visa? (Thsse are temporary visas though they can be rolled over reapeatedly and it can happen an indefinite number of times.). If they are in any of the Streams, it would be the Skilled Stream.

 

I would suggest that you play with the DIAC website and see what you can find:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/

 

Also, you might want to discuss the possibilities with a Registered Migration Agent, in which case I would recommend George Lombard because he understands the Health requirement properly, which many of his RMA competitors do not.

 

Please feel free to send me a Private Message if I can help further. To do that, just click on my user-bane.

 

Cheers

 

Gill