Gollywobbler

Hi Chris Like you say, fingers crossed. Are your daughter's doctors expecting that she will make a full recovery quite soon? If yes, have they stated this firmly to the MOC, do you know? Cheers Gill

Hi Genie1 1. Why do you want to wait till you reach Oz before applying for a Student visa, please? Wouldn't it be easier and cleaner to get the Student visa whilst you are still in the UK? 2. Which visa do you intend to use in order to be able to enter Australia in the first place? Visitor visas are not supposed to be springboards to anything else. 3. Does your 46 year old Partner have any children of his own, please? If not, or if his children do not upset the Balance of Family Test, I would suggest the following strategy: A. Apply for the PV 103 for both of you, with you as the main applicant for that, without delay. It would take the PVC (Parents Visa Centre) about 6 weeks to acknowledge recipt of the PV application and to confirm that they have added it to their system. B. Once you get the acknowledgement from the PVC, then apply for a Student visa for your Partner, with you as his dependant. The academic year begins at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb in Australia, so there would be plenty of time to do things this way around. He would want to enrol for a course that begins in late Jan/early Feb 2013. You would not need specific Permission to Work. That is now granted automatically with Student visas. http://www.immi.gov.au/students/ Whether or not you really need a migration agent to help with any of this depends on you more than it depends on anything else. If you are prepared to do some head-banging until you understand all the relevant words on the DIAC website, plus you are prepared to be really thorough and conscientious about getting all the paperwork right, there is no reason why you shouldn't deal with both visa applications by yourselves. It is not rocket science, DIAC provide an extremely helpful Checklist with every type of visa, which you can download from their website, and DIAC really do simplify the process and make it easy for any applicant in person who is not an unreliable scatterbrain. A Registered Migration Agent in the UK would charge you about £600-£800 (possibly plus VAT) for dealing with an application for a Student visa. They'd probably want somewhere in the region of £1,000 (+/- VAT) for a PV 103 application. I'm dubious about the value of that, myself, when there are no complications and all that it needs is for you yourself to keep a cool head and to do it methodically, one visa at a time. Don't try to prepare both applications at the same time - it would be much easier to cut your teeth on an application for a PV 103 - which are as ridiculously simple as it is possible for them to be, bearing in mind that the Forms were designed by bureaucrats with little common-sense but plenty of zeal! Once you've despatched the PV 103 application, then you can clear your desk and make a start on the nuts and bolts for the Student visa application next. Just by wading through the extremely tedious but actually very straightforward procedures for the PV 103, you will learn how DIAC's mind works, if you like. FWIW, my own mother has a Contributory Parent Visa sc 143. In 2005, I discovered that she would be eligible for a CPV. I then discussed it all with my sister Elaine, who has lived in Perth since Noah was a nipper. I happen to be a solicitor in England & Wales but I had never dealt with any Immigration Law matters, didn't study Immi Law as an optional extra or anything and to start with, I was totally baffled by the DIAC website as it was at the time in 2005 (2 websites before the current one.) I couldn't understand a word of it, to begin with. I had never come across Immigration Jargon before, didn't really understand what a visa actually is, legally, didn't understand the concepts involved in Immigration and so forth. Having discovered that Mum would be eligible, I told Elaine that I supposed the next step would be to find and instruct a migration agent? Elaine said, "Waste of money. If you're sure that Mum is eligible then we can do the application by ourselves." She turned out to have been 100% right. Cheers Gill PS: Precisely because I'm a lawyer and I was scared sh*tless that I might make a mistake, I beat my own brains into a much finer pulp than was either actually necessary or most people would do! My own imagination was making the whole thing seem much hairier than it actually was/is! PPS: There was a potential BoF Test complication for my Mum. She has a step-child as well as two children of her own and only one of the 3 lives in Australia. The old DIAC website contradicted itself. One of the Fact Sheets said that the step-child wouldn't be counted in the BoF Test. The other Fact Sheet said that she would be. There was nothing to indicate which of these two Sheets was correct. So then I downloaded the legislation itself, to have a squint at what the relevant Law actually said. I became convinced that the Australian Government uses kangaroos as Parliamentary Draftsmen. Canberra is full of roos, apparently. I reckon that at least 50% of them are on the Federal Government's payroll and that they are not being paid just to mow the grass with their teeth!

Hi Syed 1. Once at least 50% of their children have Permanent Residence in Australia, your Parents will be eligible for Parent migration because they will meet the Balance of Family Test. In this situation, time spent in Australia by the Child who will Sponsor the Parent application counts towards the time needed for the sponsor to become "settled" in Oz. 2. If your Parents are both in Australia, on a visa which is not subject to Condition 8503, then they could apply for an APV as soon as your Dad turns 65. In this situation, Mum's age would be irrelevant because she would be the secondary visa applicant. 3. Are you sure they got a 3-month sc 676 Tourist visa and not a sc 679 Sponsored Family Visitor Visa? If they obtained a sc 676 the first time, why do you think they might have to get a sc 679 next time? That said, don't count on the idea that DIAC will not impose Condition 8503 the next time around. DIAC are not stupid and when members of a family are from a High Risk country, DIAC tend to be more diligent than usual. There was no particular reason for DIAC to impose Condition 8503 on the first visas - your Parents would not have been eligible to apply for any onshore visas anyway. Next time, you can be sure that if you have worked out that they would be eligible to apply for APVs then DIAC will probably work that out as well - which might inspire them to impose Condition 8503. At this stage, we cannot say for sure that this would happen but we can't ignore the possibility that it might happen. 4. In your first post, you said that Dad is so disabled by his loss of vision that he can't leave the house without an assistant. Now you say that he is only blind in one eye and can see perfectly well with the other. In that case, why does he need help in order to leave home? It is not me that you have to persuade, Syed. It is the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth. Since you hope that your Parents will be able to apply for onshore APVs, the MOC will be the doctor from Medibank Health Solutions in Sydney. http://www.medibankhealth.com.au/ So please ensure that you think about this carefully. If the MOC doctor is not persuaded that your Dad meets the Health requirement because of his sight or because of some other problem associated with his diabetes, the visa might be refused. I'm not saying "Don't try" but I am saying, "Don't be too optimistic." I appreciate that if you cannot get PR in Oz for your Parents, you might have to return to India in order to look after them there instead. Unfortunately, the Government accepts that this does happen in a significant minority of cases. The Govt are not minded to alter their visa rules because of it. Best wishes Gill

Hello Syed I am sorry to disappoint you but from the information you have provided above, your Parents are not eligible to apply for Parent migration at present. From what you say, there are only 2 children, yourself and your sister. However neither of you are Permanent Residents as yet, so at the moment your Parents would not be able to meet the Balance of Family Test - which is central to and crucial to all of the possible Parent visas: http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/balance-family.htm If your Parents have no other children apart from yourself and your sister then at least one of you or Sis must obtain a Permanent Resident visa before anything else could be done about possible Parent migration for Mum & Dad. There is no way around this. The second problem is that in order to become eligible for an Aged Parent or a Contributory Aged Parent visa, the older Parent must be 65 or older. You say that Dad was born in 1948, so he is only 61 or 62 now. Mum is younger than Dad so her own age would not solve this problem. The third issue is that it seems that your Parents would only be able to visit Australia if they use a subclass 679 Sponsored Family Visitor Visa: http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/visiting-family/679/ DIAC only insist on the sc 679 visas when the visa applicants come from a High Risk country such as India. I am not a migration agent but my guess is that Condition 8503 is probably imposed automatically on sc 679 visas? The effect of Condition 8503 is that it would prevent your Parents from being able to make a valid application for an APV or a CAPV even if Dad were old enough to do so - which he isn't. http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/52bWaiving_Condition8503.htm The fourth problem is that you say that Dad is either blind or partially sighted due to problems caused by his diabetes. I am a lawyer, not a doctor. However if Dad's blindness prevents him from being able to look after himself, independently of anyone else, then the chances are high that he would not be able to meet the Health requirement for Parent migration. Unless his loss of sight can be cured, it is very unlikely that there will be a way round this problem in the foreseeable future. Blindness usually does operate as a bar to permanent migration in 99% of cases. So although you might have read this thread carefully, doing that is not enough to overcome the problems that you and your Parents face at the moment, unfortunately. Do you know whether it would be possible to restore your father's vision at least in one eye? I am a lawyer, not a doctor, so I don't know whether it is possible to reverse this particular side-effect of diabetes. If it would be possible to restore his vision in one eye then the medical hurdle to migration could be overcome. It wouldn't solve the other problems but I think that when there are several different problems - as there are with your own family - then one can at least try to deal with the problems one by one. Best wishes Gill

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

Hello Genie1 Have you considered making an immediate application for an offshore Parent subclass 103 visa? http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/103/ At the moment, the Govt is allowing a total of 1,400 PV103s each year so the waiting time for one is about 9 or 10 years. You would pay the 1st Instalment at the time of making the application (currently $1,995 until 1st July 2012 when it will probably be increased.) An immediate application made soon would fix the amount of the 2nd Instalment at $1,735, payable just before the visa is granted. If the quotas remain as they are, this might be quicker - in the end - than the strategy you have described. It would also provide certainty. Even the Aussie Government does not know what its Immigration policies will be 4 or 5 years from now, so nobody would advise you that it would be safe to wait until you turn 65 and just seeing how the land lies then. I think the other advantage of an immediate application for a PV 103 is that there is a specifc Policy that someone who has applied for a PV 103 should be granted a 12 month stay in Australia whenever s/he applies for a subclass 676 Tourist Visa. Since DIAC specifically permit this under Policy, it is easier than just hoping that they will not get stroppy about repeated applications for Tourist Visas and it also removes worries about Condition 8503. If you have already applied for a PV 103, it doesn't matter if DIAC impose Condition 8503 on the Tourist Visas. http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/52bWaiving_Condition8503.htm The information above assumes that you would be applying for a PV 103 as the sole applicant. You seem to be saying that you only have two children, both of whom live in Oz. Therefore there is no problem with the Balance of Family Test for you on your own. Now your Partner! How old is he at the moment, please? Also, does he have any children of his own? This is important because if you and he make a joint application for Parent migration, any children of his would be added to your own children for the purpose of the BoF Test. So if he has 3 children, none of whom live in Australia, then as a couple you and he would not be eligible for Parent migration because you would fall foul of the BoF Test. Parents are specifically excluded from eligibility for the Remaining Relative Visa. Parent migration is specifically aimed at Parents so DIAC want to avoid any confusion. The other vague query I have at the moment is whether repeated Tourist visas would really be the best option for you. What about a Student Visa instead? There is no upper age limit on eligibility for a Student visa, no bar to applying for a PV 103 and then applying for a Student visa afterwards, plus if you enrolled in a course that would last for 2 or 3 years, you would be permitted to remain in Australia for about 2.5 or 3.5 years at a stretch. You would also be permitted to do 20 hours PW of paid work during the college terms and you would be allowed to work for an unlimited number of hours PW during the college vacations. (You might also meet an Aussie and fall in love with him, perhaps?) Since the Student visa course would not be a route to skilled Immigration for you, it wouldn't really matter what you might choose to study. I'd suggest that whatever you chose should be studied at a TAFE because the TAFEs are run by the State Governments. I have heard of a case where a TAFE boss was so horrified to learn that Paents either have to pay a fortune or wait forever that this lady TAFE boss took pity on the Parent/Student and agreed to charge only the level of TAFE fees that a domestic Student wuld pay. Of course, there is no guarantee that another TAFE would be similarly generous but I do know of a case where a TAFE over in NSW was very generous. Does this help? If not, please feel free to scream at me! Cheers Gill

Hi Clive http://www.vacancies.sa.gov.au/NOVPUblic/asp/public/VacancySearch.aspx A friend of mine is a Medical Administrator. When she first reached Adelaide about 6 months ago, SA Health told her categorically that they would only appoint people for SA Health vacancies if the successful candidate was already an employee of SA Health. She and I ignored that statement because in practice almost all of the State health authorities will appoint outsiders to their fixed term positions. Sure enough, in Nov 2011 my friend started a fixed term job with.... SA Health! In the UK, the whole of her carerr had been spent with the DHSS and then the MOD so I was relieved when she found another Public Service job in Adelaide CBD. The State health people are usually desperate for experienced Registered Nurses who can speak fluent English and being UK-trained is an asset. The State govt authorities would normally only consider a sc 457 Temporary visa to begin with - but that can be negotiable depending on the location of the proposed workplace. Do you two particularly want to be in or close to Adelaide or would you be prepared to consider other parts of SA? Also, do you have any children? If ues, how old are they, please? I don't know anything much about the private hospitals around Adelaide but most of the private hospotals in Oz are also geared up to recruit new immigrants on emplouer-sponsored visas. The link below might help a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hospitals_in_Australia Cheers Gill

Hi Kazzy What is your occupation, please? Also, would it be feasible to leave the pets in the UK until you have decided whether or not Australia is really for you? I suspect that it would not be possible to persuade one friend to take all 4 pets but what about 4 friends? I once "fostered" a cat for a year for a friend of mine who went off to explore South Africa for a year. Naturally, I fell deeply in love with Monty (the cat) so I was sad when Helen reclaimed him but I always knew that he was never mine to keep forever. Cheers Gill

Hi Clive I meant to answer your thread the other day about whether a Nurse could get employer-sponsorship. The answer - most emphatically - is "Yes." Most of the hospitals will sponsor Nurses themselves (and their HR Departments know exactly how to do it.) There are also loads of nursing Agencies that recruit internationally. Again, they know exactly how to do it. Employer-sponsorship is usually much more successful with Nurses than with any other group of workers because even if the Nurse decides that she loathes the first employer, another employer os usually only too eager to snap her up. Many of the Nurses who now have PR in Oz got in via employer-sponsorship originally and several say that they don't understand why a Nurse would want to bother with GSM migration instead. Have a look on the British Expats forum. Somewhere on there, I've seen a section devoted to Nursing in Australia and that is a good place to look for the names of Agencies, hospitals etc. I've heard of Ramsey or Ramsay Health but there are hundreds of others besides. What sort of Nursing does your wife do, please? I'm sorry to butt in on your new thread instead of answering your old one but I think it is worth reassuring you that it probably won't matter too much if the timing becomes too tight on the GSM visa route. Cheers Gill

Hi PaulaH How old is Dad and what is his occupation, please? Does Mum work as well? If yes, how old is she and what is her occupation, please? I've known situations where it has been possible to get the Paents an RSMS visa, based on the occupation of one of them, so it is worth asking the question, just in case. People in their 60s have been able to get employer-sponsored visas but it does depend on the exact occupation of the Parent concerned. Meanwhile, your 35 year old sister. You say that she is an "Underwriter Administrator." Please could you get a more specific, detailed description from her about exactly what she does during the average working week? Please could you also find out how long she has been doing this for? Also, does she have anu formal, academic qualifications (eg a degree or an HND?) I'm wondering whether we can shoehorn her into something like "Financial Investment Adviser?" http://www.immi.gov.au/asri/ Cheers Gill

Hello Elaine77 The people at home are right about the idea that at least one of you must be a skilled worker in order to be eligible to emigrate to Australia nowadays. The Government has decided that they already have sufficient un-skilled Aussies, so the emphasis is on attracting immigrants who will be able to boost Australia's economy. What does your Partner do and how old is he, please? If you work as well, do you work full time at the moment? If so, what is your own occupation and how old are you, please? Cheers Gill

Hi Claire "wrussell" is Westly Russell, who is an experienced and capable Registered Migration Agent. His website is here: http://www.pinoyau.com/ If you apply for an offshore sc 119 visa, it wouldn't matter where you are or Tel is at the time when the application is lodged but you would both need to be outside Australia at the time when the visa is granted. With regard to the possibility of a Bridging Visa B for Tel, the length of time permitted outside Australia varies according to the relevant facts. DIAC won't grant a BVB for an indefinite period outside Oz but I've heard of them granting BVBs that permit an absence of 12 months at a stretch. It is very much a question of making sure that someone senior within DIAC understands the relevant facts. So it depends on why you are on a BVA and so forth. It sounds like you would be the main applicant for the sc 119? Cheers Gill

Hi again Debsch I'm sitting at home today nursing an extremely sore eye. (I'm 55 and I fear that the time has come for me to give up wearing contact lenses. They have become the cause of too many days when one eye or the other is too sore for words. At the moment my optician is trying out different types of contact lenses to see whether he can stave off the Evil Moment but I don't feel optimistic about that today, I must say! I've relied on contact lenses since I was 17 and I can see better with these than with glasses but it really isn't worth putting up with regular discomfort, in my view.) To continue to try to answer you fully, I think the second Parent (the one who does not have a CPV) has two possible options. One is to try to rely on a series of subclass 676 long-stay Tourist visas: http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/676/ Officiallly, DIAC frown on the idea of someone using a succession of sc 676 visas in order to "live" in Australia rather than "just visiting." That said, at the moment DIAC say that they have seen a marked decline in the number of applications for CPV 143s. They attribute this to the Global Financial Crisis (which seems to be on-going) the fact that the AUD is deliberately being kept strong against a basket of other currencies and so forth. Also, the people who process applications for sc 676 visas are in Hobart if the application is made on-line. There is no particular reason for them to want to know anything about Parent migration. I reckon that there could well be room for at least 3 years' manoevering on this one! If DIAC become difficult about the second Parent's application for a repeat sc 676, another option would be a Student Visa for the second Parent. There is no upper age limit on being able to study in Australia. The TAFEs are run by the individual State Governments. I've heard of cases where the boss of the TAFE has been so shocked to discover the sheer cost of a CPV that the TAFE has offered to charge the Parent no more than the domestic student price for a course. At the moment, it is not taking as long as 15-20 years to get an offshore Parent sc 103 visa. At the moment, it is only taking around 10 years for a sc 103 and 7-8 years for an APV 804. The history of Parent migration is pretty complex. In 1999, the Howard Government reduced the annual quota of Parent visas to 55 (sic, fifty five) visas only that year. This was because John Howard was pushing for the introduction of the Contributory Parent scheme but the Opposition kept rejecting his attempt to introduce a Bill. He seems to have decided to force the issue by slashing the annual quota. Eventually in 2002 the Opposition agreed to the idea of the Contributory Parent scheme and the first CPVs were offered wef 1st July 2003. Originally there were only 3,000 CPVs and CAPVs each year and about 2,000 PVs and APVs. To start with, around 3,000 CPVs a year were OK because the Contributory Parent scheme took some time to become popular etc. In the very early days, DIAC were processing applications for CPV 143s within 3-4 months. That crept up to 6-8 months and then when we applied for my mother's CPV in November 2005, the Parents Visa Centre estimated about 9 months to process her application and it took exactly 9 months. There was then an explosion in the number of applications for CPVs in 2006/7. A man called Phil Lovering was the Manager of the PVC at the time. In December 2007, he suddenly announced that he had granted all 3,000 CPVs & CAPVs for 2007/8 and that the remaining applicants would just have to wait until after 1st July 2008. He estimated that it would take more than 2 years to process each new application for a CPV. Phil himself never commented on the rumours but the suspicion was that he had deliberately created a PR crisis in order to force the Government's hand. At the time, Senator Chris Evans was the Minister for Immi. He caved in and agreed that the annual quota of CPVs should be 5,900 a year, then 6,900 a year with 600 CAPVs in order to make 7,500 in total. However he halved the annual quota of non-contributory PVs and APVs to 1,000 in total each year. Then in 2010, it all changed again. The PVC no longer needed an annual quota of 7,500 CPVs so Minister Bowen seems to have agreed to chop 1,000 off the quota for CPVs and to add that back onto the quota of PVs and APVs. For the time being, there is peace and harmony! It is taking about 12 months to process an application for a CPV and about 6 months for an application for an onshore CAPV instead. 1,400 PVs are available each year and 600 APVs. This is what has halved the waiting times for PVs and APVs. My feeling is that this will alter again when/if the Global Economy picks up again. Like all new visas, the Contributory Parent scheme didn't proceed exactly as expected. At the outset, the Government assumed that most of the applicants would be British or at least on the WASP-ish side! Phil Lovering retired on 30th June 2009 and I had a chat with him on the phone not long before that. He said that the majority of the CPV applicants were no longer WASPS and they were no longer predominantly English-speaking. He reckoned that the Government had underestimated the amount of wealth that was going to be created in countries like India and China, though Phil said that he was sitting on CPV applications from Parents in almost every other country in the world. He said he reckoned that the Brits were actually in a minority of applicants. I think that what happens next will depend on what happens about the Euro and how the economies of India and China fare over the next couple of years. At the moment, Chancellor Merkel of Germany is saying stoutly that she won't let the Uro collapse. A lot of economists seem to think that the pollies won't be able to prevent its collapse. The markets seem to regard President Obana as being a twit and apparently the Chinese economy is slowing down due to decreased consumer demand from the West. I've no idea how all that will pan out but I think that it will affect what Australia does about Parent migration in future. Cheers Gill

Hi Debsch It is possible for one parent alone to get a CPV 143. 5 years after the date of the grant of the CPV, the other Parent can apply for a Spouse/Partner visa. It used to be possible to get the CPV and then get the Spouse/Partner visa immediately afterwards but DIAC decided that this was a "loophole" and blocked it in about 2009. They now insist on the five year gap. http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/whats_new.htm#f That said, ypur father would be old enough to apply for an APV 804 visa. Because he is old enough, Mum's age does not matter so they could both apply for APV 804s. Which EU country are they Citizens of, please? I think it would be important to check whether their home country has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with Australia because these RHCAs are bi-lateral Agreements so not all EU countries have them with Oz. Cheers Gill

Hi Karen I suspect it is a waste of time to try to talk to the Seniors Card people on the phone. I suspect that the drill is to go and see them, to explain that Mum intends to live in Australia permanently and explain that the only reason why she isn't already a Permanent Resident visa-wise is because Paremts are not high priority applicants in DIAC's eyes so processing Mum's application for an Aged Parent visa is taking much longer than you and she would like. Emphasise the word "Aged," I suggest. I believe that the Seniors Card scheme is only a voluntary thing on all sides. There certainly isn't any Commonwealth legislation about it and I doubt whether there is much (if any) State legislation either. Indeed, the website for the QLD Seniors Card used to say words to the effect of, "Even if the supplier [of the goods or service] doesn't participate in the Seniors Card scheme, wave your card and look old and pathetic. Shame them into giving you a discount!" I chickled when I read it because it reminded me of my sister's mother-in-law who is a native Queenslander even though she now lives in Perth. Qieemslanders seem to be up-front and determined about getting what they want! Also, my sister told me about an elderly Aussie gentleman that she knows. He told her, "I always ask for everything possible. Even if I only get 50% of what I ask for, that is better than nothing." Good advice, I suspect. Mary's father definitely confirmed that he had met a British couple who live in Adelaide and are awaiting APVs. He told me that this couple had told him that they have Seniors Cards. I will e-mail him and ask more about this because it sounds like your Mum ought to be able to get one. Cheers Gill

Hi Ktee I'm not Karen but my own mother has the same issue with GP's bills. Medicare pays $x towards the cost of a consultation with a GP and this amount is the same whether the patient is a Permanent Resident or a British Visitor. Last time I checked the Medicare website, $x was about $32 at the time but I would think that has probably increased to something like around $36 by now. Most GPs reckon that a fair price for a consultation is $60 or $70. Some GPs will charge the patient the full $70 and leave the patient to recover the statutory contribution from Medicare. Other GPs will charge the patient $70 minus the statutory contribution from Medicare and the GP collects the stautory contribution from Medicare. Other GPs, like the one my mother uses in Perth, have a social conscience! He does "bulk billing" for children and the elderly. So when a child or an OAP consults Dr Oi, he only charges the statutory amount paid by Medicare and he sends the bill direct to Medicare, so from Mum's point of view the service is free at the point of delivery. There are doctors in every major city who do the same as Dr Oi does over in Perth. The trick is to find a doctor who does this "bulk billing" routinely or who could be persuaded to do it for your mother. The contract for GP services in Australia is not the same as the one in the UK, which is why there is this difference in their practices. In the UK, most GPs get most of their money from the NHS. Successive Governments have had an ideological belief that the State must pay for the consultation with an NHS GP, not the patient. I've never consulted a doctor in the USA but as far as I can gather, the Australian Medicare system is probably a cross between the NHS in the UK and the largely private, 'patient pays' system in the USA. I'm not certain because I'm not sure of the American details but I think my guess is probably roughly accurate. We didn't make any conscious effort to find Dr Oi. My sister was already using him by the time Mum & Dad first visited Perth in 1989-90. They were there for a year and Mum has had high blood pressure ever since I can remember so Dr Oi got the job of looking after her and she has stuck with him whenever she has been in Australia ever since. I've met him a couple of times and from what I've seen of him and heard about him, I think he is first rate. Unless Karen knows of a GP in Adelaide who does bulk billing for elderly patients, I've an idea that might help both of you. A friend of mine is a British lady called Doreen who works for SA Health. Doreen is a Medical Adminsitrator but she specialises in Aged Care services with SA Health. The Aged Care team at SA Health might keep a list of the local GPs who bulk bill for Aged patients (ie anyone of Age Pension age, which is 65 or above.) So one possibility would be for you and I (or you, I and Karen) to ask Doreen whether she could find out about this and help you with it? I have her phone number, e-mail address etc. Another possibility might be to ask the staff in the local Medicare office. They pay the bills so presumably they could be persuaded to fess up with the names of the bulk-billing GPs? I told a lass in Perth about Dr Oi for her own mother's benefit. From where Shona and her Mum live, I'd have thought that an hour's drive to see Dr Oi would take too long. Shona seemed to think that the distance would not be a problem. I don't know what happens in Australia if someone needs to see a GP after hours. The only time Mum has ever needed a doctor in the evening, she had fallen and broken her hip so the ambulance took her straight to Fremantle Hospital. The ambulance crew told my sister that a public hospital is much the best place for that sort of situation because the public hospitals have doctors and surgeons either on the premises or on call at very short notice. Fremantle Hospital were superb. As soon as they had done the x-rays and blood-tests, they took Mum straight into theatre and replaced her hip. She was in theatre within 2 hours of falling over at home. I've heard of old people in the UK being made to wait for 3 days before the same sort of operation caused by the same sort of accident. But I don't know what happens in Oz if someone needs a visit from a GP after hours but the patient is not sick enough to need to go to hospital. I imagine that Medicare could explain this unless someone else on here can? The other thing to bear in mind is that if your mother is going to be a British Visitor to Australia then you must, must, must make sure that she has emergency ambulance insurance, just in case. Emergency ambulances are not free in Australia and they charge according to how much help the patient needs whilst en route to hospial. I've heard of them charging as much as $800 for a one-way ride to hospital in Brisbane. The man was only in his 40s and was visiting from the UK but he suddenly became very ill and it took the hospital several days to work out what was wrong with him. He was very poorly during the ambulance journey, which was why the bill was so high. I believe that most household insurance policies offer ambulance cover but if for any reason your own household insurance policy would not provide ambulance cover for your mother, I believe that people like the Red Cross offer special one-off insurance policies for ambulance cover only. Again, I would guess that the local Medicare office would probably be able to give you names and contact details if need be. Hope this helps and please send me a PM if you think Doreen might be able to help. Cheers Gill

Hi again, Karen I forgot to ask you in my earlier post, Does your Mum now have a Seniors Card for SA? If yes, is it useful? http://www.seniorscard.com.au/ Ktee, Seniors Card is not the same as a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. I'm not sure who administers Seniors Cards but it isn't Centrelink and the exact terms of the discounts etc vary from one State to the next but I don't know whether the State Governments administer Seniors Card or whether they merely participate in the Seniors Card scheme in their State. Hayshake, a member of Poms in Adelaide, told me about Seniors Card originally. He said that the people who administer Seniors Card in SA reckon that the SA Seniors Card scheme is more generous than in some other States. Having heard about it from Hayshake, I told my sister Elaine. She and Mum live in Perth so they got a WA Seniors Card for Mum. Mum is in a wheelchair and it is not practical for her to use public transport. Also, they live on the outskirts of Perth and I don't know whether it would be worth trekking to, say, a hairdresser who offers a discount for Seniors Card holders. However Mum had a Seniors Card at the time when Kevin Rudd decuded to give everyone the Economic Stimulus bung of $900 apiece. The Government of WA decided to give all the holders of WA Seniors Cards an extra $100 each and then they gave them another $100 each fairly recently. Mary's father investigated this in SA. He was told that he and his wife could have Seniors Cards even though they are not Permanent Residents because their intention is clearly to live in SA permanently. The Seniors Card people don't seem to worry about visa details the way the Centrelink people do. Mary's parents know another couple who are on Bridging Visas pending APV 804s. He said that this other couple have Seniors Cards and that he planned to get them for himself and his wife but I haven't heard whether he did so. My mother certainly thinks that the WA Seniors Card is useful and Hayshake was enthusiastic about the SA one, too. So I'm just wondering whether Karen's Mum has one and whether she finds it useful? Some of the British Parents in Oz seem to disparage Seniors Card as if it is the same as OAP bus-tokens in the UK but it actually sounds considerably more useful than that, I suspect? Many thanks Gill

Hi Karen Many thanks for adding to the thread. It is very difficult to make the "right" decision for the family concerned. Some families can find the money for a CPV (but paying for two would make anyone blench, I suspect.) When my father was alive, he and Mum would not have been eligible for Parent migration because he had a daughter by his first wife and then two more daughters with his second wife, Elaine's and my mother. Then after Dad died, the Australian Government continued to insist that Mum was not eligible for Parent migration because they said she has three "children," only one of whom lives in Australia. Then in 2004 the Australian Government eventually accepted that a stp-child who is over 18 cannot be counted as a "child" if the step-child's natural parent has died or the overarching contract of marriage to the step-parent has otherwise ceased to exist. We found out about this the following year, in 2005, when Mum happened to be in the UK with me at the time. Mum was 84 and Elaine (my full sister) Anne (Elaine's and my half-sister) and I all decided that we should strike whilst the iron was hot. Mum wasn't getting any younger and her health was unlikely to improve, plus we were concerned that the Australian Government might change the legislation because apparently the 2004 exclusion of the step-child had been due to an oversight in the drafting of a legislative provision in 1999 that was not intended to alter the Balance of Family Test for Parent migration. Oversights can be corrected very quickly, I feared, so we concluded that the safest option would be to spend the money and grab a CPV 143 for Mum as soon as we could. It probably wasn't necessary to worry so much but Mum was widowed in 1991. She had spent every year from 1992 -2005 spending most of her time in Australia, relying on a succession of long-stay Tourist Visas and the Australian High Commission in London made it clear that they were becoming stroppy about that. So we decided to move quickly and just get the job done, once and for all, just in case.... The only family I know personally where the Parents are on a Bridging Visa pending an APV 804 are my friend Mary's parents, who have been living in Adelaide on Bridging Visas since December 2009. I exchange e-mails with them regularly since Mary's mother and I used to chat on the phone regularly when they lived in the UK. Mary's father was adamant. He felt that paying for two CPVs would be far too expensive and would leave them short of cash. He went to see DIAC in Adelaide and the lady there suggested that he could consider the APV 804 visa if he preferred. He came back to the UK and mulled it over. Meanwhile I contacted Medicare and studied the Centrelink website. My own feeling was the same as that of the lady from DIAC - it was more important for Mary's parents to be with their two daughters and their grandchildren in Adelaide than to worry about which visa was chosen. Financial difficulties can be lessened. Physical separation and worrying about loved ones is much harder to cure. They are now very happy. They have made a circle of friends of their own age and are doing far more than they used to do in the UK. The better climate seems to be the most important factor in making this possible. It must be just over a year since your own mother applied for an APV 804, isn't it? Is she talking Strine yet?! Personally I think that you are an extremely valuable "witness" for anyone facing the CPV/APV dilemma. I only know what Mary and her Parents tell me about their everyday lives. You have first-hand experience of this, which I do not have, so I am desperately keen to persuade you not to become bored with this forum/the subject! It sounds as if Immigration leave the Parents alone and the Parents on Bridging Visas just live completely normal lives? Happy New Year to you, your Mum and the rest of your family, hon. Cheers Gill

Hi Ktee The answer is "not that I know of." The legislation says that someone who holds a Bridging Visa pending an application for a Parent visa is NOT entitled to Medicare. http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1024i.pdf However, as I said early on in the "Cheap Parent Visas" thread, I queried this with Medicare. Medicare told me that if the Bridging Visas holder is British then Medicare treat the person as being a British Visitor to Australia. That means that the Reciprocal Health Care Agreement between Australia and the UK kicks in, which provides the Visitor level of Medicare: http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/public/migrants/visitors/uk.jsp The price of drugs, especially, is subsidised via the RHCA but a British holder of a Bridging Visa cannot obtain a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/conc_cards_cshc.htm In England & Wales, Seniors get prescriptions filled for free. In Australia, the holder of a CSH Card pays about $6.50 per type of drug per prescription. Please imagine that Mrs Bloggs takes Drugs A & B every day for her blood pressure. The doctor givers her a scrip fora 2-month supply of each of the drugs. If Mrs Bloggs has a CSH Card then she will not have to pay more than $13. If she does not have a CSH Card but she is British, the cost will be around $70 a time. If she comes from a country that does not have an RHCA with Australia then I guess the cost would be even higher than $70 or so. My own mother has a Contributory Parent Visa. She is now 91 and she takes about 15 different prescription pills every day - for a variety of minor but chronic ailments associated mainly with her great age. She got a CPV 143, which gave her Permanent Residency in Australia from Day One. She was taking about 13 pills a day at the time (speaking as the person who sat here with the different boxes of pills, filling out Form 26 for Mum's visa medical but her doctor has added a couple more pills a day since then.) After Mum had lived in Oz for 2 years, she was able to get a CSH card and the monthly pill-bill plummeted. I can never make up my mind whether the APV 804 visa is genuinely "cheap." I used a catchy title in order to persuade other members on here to read the thread. If the Parent applies for an APV 804 then s/he will avoid the whopping (and increasingly high) premium payable for a CPV 143 instead. In return for that, I'd expect a CSH Card promptly. The Parent has already paid for the subsidy via the premium for the visa, after all. However the Aussie Government do get their pound of flesh one way or the other, it seems to me. At the moment, the average wait on a Bridging Visa pending the grant of an APV 804 is about 8 years but this period varies - it has been as high as 16 years until fairly recently. After that, the holder of an APV 804 can claim a CSH Card two years later. S/he may also be able to claim Special Benefit after 2 years: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/special_benefit.htm Special Benefit might help to iron out the fact that the British State Pension is frozen. I don't know for sure because Mum's CPV 143 means that it would be unwise for her to try to claim Special Benefit for 10 years after her CPV 143 was granted. If she lives for long enough, after 10 years she would be entitled to make a claim for the Australian Age Pension anyway: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/payments/age_pension.htm I'm not enough of a mathematician to try to do the comparitive sums accurately. Also, I'm not convinced that the sums are the most important thing. Personally, I think that Family Unity is far more important than money. The Child in Australia can subsidise the cost of the pills if need be, I believe. Any children in another country could help. So (personally) I believe that the only relevant question is, "What will make this Parent happy?" It does seem to me that that is the overriding consideration. At the time (2005) that my sister in Oz and I discussed it and concluded that a CPV 143 would be the best option for Mum, Mum did what she always does if she gets half a chance! She'll try to Run Interference if she can. She was 84 and whinged, "Is it really worth spending this amount of capital at my age?" etc etc. Elaine and I both told her, "YES! Now shut up and sign here!" That sounds harsh but you don't know my Mum. She thought she was settling down for at least a year's worth of International Committee Meetings about the subject, with herself as the main player! Cheers Gill

Hi Fresh With a bit of luck, I might be able to suggest the skeleton and you might be able to put flesh on the bones. I've been around these Aussie migration forums for a long time now, even though I live in the UK. (My close family live in Perth, WA.) A year or two back, someone told me that he had managed to get employer-sponsorship and thereby a visa for Australia. The employer-sponsor was a TV company based in Adelaide but I was not told its name. This company definitely sponsored one Briton so they might sponsor you next? The visa you should be considering is either the subclass 457 temporary employer-sponsored visa: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/sbs/ OR It might be possible to proceed straight to a subclass 119 RSMS visa instead, which gives the immigrant Permanent Residency on Day One: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/rsms/ The whole of South Australia is deemed to be "Regional Australia" so there is no problem with that if the employer-sponsor is based in Adelaide. Also, it is possible to get an exemption from the strict skills/experience requirements with an RSMS visa: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/rsms/exemptions.htm DIAC do not seem to be particularly strict about what might make a set of circumstances "exceptional." DIAC are a Government Department. They do as they are told by the Government of the day. The Gillard Government are keen to encourage new immigrants to move to Regional Australia. The State Government of South Australia are equally keen on the idea because the population of SA is deemed to be too small, therefore the State Government of SA does not receive as much tax-revenue as it would like. The list of skills allowed for a sc 457 visa is much longer than it is for GSM visas. http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2011L00246 Some of the occupations on the SOL are also only possible if there is an employer sonsor. It sounds like you understand how to read the ANZSCO Dictionary? http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1220.0Contents02006?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1220.0&issue=2006&num=&view= I doubt whether a migration agent could really help you at this stage. They mostly only deal with visas. Very few of them offer to find employer-sponsors as well and without this crucial person, nothing else gets off the ground. However, Richard and Sandy Coates might be able to help you. Sandy is a recruitment agent, trading as Global TradeSearch in Adelaide: http://www.globaltradesearch.com.au/contact.html Sandy has fingers in more pies than her website suggests and she also has plenty of chutzpah. She is Australian and she is not frightened of contacting a total stranger (eg a TV company) making friends with them and persuading them that they want to sponsor a wannabe immigrant who just happens to be tucked under Sandy's other wing at the time. Her husband Richard Coates is a Registered Migration Agent, trading as Celtic Migration: http://celticmigration.com.au/ So between them, Richard and Sandy are able to offer the employer a one-stop shop. Hardly any Aussie employers understand visas but Richard and Sandy are able to make it easy for the employer. I've heard that their services are not cheap but they are also almost unique and they are based in Adelaide, which cannot hurt from your point of view. Hope this helps a little. Cheers Gill

Hi Fangbuzz And might I also suggest that the Registered Migration Agent whom you might like to contact is Westly Russell, who posts as "wrussell" on the forums and whose website is here: http://www.pinoyau.com/ I am not a migration agent myself but I used to moderate another of these internet forums devoted to the subject of immigration to Australia. So I have come across Westly Russell before and I reckon that he is very good at the job. I am extremely difficult to please so my praise of Westly is very high praise, coming fom me. Cheers Gill

Hi Paula I'm sorry not to have seen your post sooner but the week before Christmas is usually hectic for most people including me! Someone has mentioned that your Parents might be eligible for a Business Skills visa? Please try the links below: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/business/ http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/booklets.htm You need Booklet 7 to go with the visas described in the first link above. I only know two things about Business Skills visas, being: 1. They exist; and 2. Alan Collett from Go Matilda knows all the details. http://www.gomatilda.com/contact.cfm Please scroll down to the section headed "our people." Meanwhile, what is your sister's occupation, please? Cheers Gill

Hi again, Mis Now for the rest of your questions. When the parent is applying for the visa to go to Oz on 'holiday' they are best advised to apply for a ETA 90 day visa. When entering Oz and if questioned by Immigration on why they are coming ....'it's just for a holiday' The Parents MUST NOT FIB. It is not possible to get a visitor visa for Australia unless the sole purpose of applying for it is in order to "visit" Australia. "Visiting" somewhere does not include moving there for the rest of one's life. Therefore when the Parents arrive at the Australian airport, it is imperative that they will be telling the truth. Their visa permits a short visit and that is what they have come for. Once they are in Australia, the Parents might like the place so much that they change their minds and decide that they'd like to stay in Australia forever. In that scenario, it might be possible to enable them to do so. One of the reasons why I chose an *offshore* CPV for my own mother is because I knew that she can't be trusted not to rabbit about her life history and all her plans for the future with a total stranger (the hypothetical immigration official) who doesn't even want to hear the entire bluddy saga! ....they are best advised to apply for a ETA 90 day visa. The subclass 976 ETA and the subclass 651 e-Visitor visa cannot attract Condition 8503 - No Further Stay. Condition 8503 prevents the visa holder from making a valid application for any other visa whilst s/he is in Australia. The subclass 676 Tourist Visa can attract Condition 8503, so the price of a longer period of stay can be a loss of flexibility with regard to other possible options. http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/visa-options.htm They apply for a APV 804 onshore vise to Perth and when this application is made a Bridging Visa A is granted. If they want to go on holiday outside Oz they must apply for a Bridging Visa B which grants them 90 days. You are correct. I just have one question and that is my understanding that with this Visa they are to have 2 medicals - when do they take place? That certainly used to be the case. The first meds were requested about 15 months after the applicatiion was made and the Parent wouldn't be added to the official Queue until the first set of Meds and pccs had been cleared. The second set of meds & pccs were done at the very end of the waiting period, shortly before the grant of the sc APV 804 visa or the offshore sc 103 Parent Visa. About a year ago, I read a DIAC discussion paper that suggested doing away with the requirement for the first set of meds for non-contributory Parents. The argument was that the 1st VAC is not enough to enable DIAC to cover the cost of processing two sets of meds per Parent, so was it worth insisting on the first set of meds? I don't know what they decided to do in the end (but deciding to have another dozen Meetings about the matter over the course of the next 5 years isn't an unlikely idea for a bunch of Civil Servants to consider to be a wholly reasonable way forward!) Making a decision about it will involve the Chief Medical Officer, his bosses the Suits from the Health Policy Section, DIAC's Finance Section, the PVC, the Family Visa Policy section, maybe DIAC's IT people as well - since they are involved with the new e-Health thing - and probably a dozen other people whom I have not thought to include. You know what Civil Servants are like! The thing to do would be to make the APV application, wait for the Parents Visa Centre to acknowledge the application and then ask them whether two sets of meds will still be required? The PVC will be able to advise at the appropriate time. the reason for asking on the medical side of things is that OH mum has had Breast cancer but has been clear for 5 years now. Other than that the only things wrong with her is that she is alittle unsteady on her legs due to a back problem. It would be very unusual for the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth to query a history of cancer if the visa applicant has been clear of it for 5 years. As for M-i-L being wobbly on her pins, my own mother broke her back a few years ago and she can hardly walk at all. She can hobble a few yards on a level surface indoors, usiing a zimmer frame but for anything more ambitious she needs a wheelchair. It didn't cause any problems with my mother's visa meds so a bit of lameness shouldn't be a problem for your M-i-L either. Cheers Gill

Hi Mis You'll hate me but it sounds like pedantry is necessary in your case. The reason is because you have asked about the period of "settlement" needed by the person who will sponsor the Parent-applicants, so please bear with me. In your auto-signature, you say: This suggests that you are Hubby and that you are an Australian Citizen? Your Wife's parents might want to migrate in due course. Am I right about the facts so far, please? The legislation says that the person who is going to Sponsor the Parents can be their Child or it can be their Child's co-habiting Spouse or Partner. The Sponsor MUST be "a *settled* Australian Citizen, Australian Permanent Resident or an eligible Kiwi." (Please forget about the Kiwis - they don't sound relevant to you!) The legislation doesn't contain any clear guidance about what is meant by "settled." Under Policy, DIAC say that they consider a Permanent Resident who has lived in Oz for at least 2 years will be deemed by Policy to be "settled." However, if the Sponsor is an Australian Citizen then a period of as little as 3 months may be regarded as sufficient time under Policy. Please study Booklet 3 on Parent Migration: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/books3.htm In particular, the relevant bit is the section on Page 18 of Booklet 3, especially the section headed "Settled and Usually Resident." The wording of the legislation about this is so woolly and vague that it has led to litigation in the Court (in the case of Naiker) and it has led to several appeals to the Migration Review Tribunal as well. Please see the following article by Alan Collett of Go Matilda: http://www.gomatilda.com/news/article.cfm?articleid=441 The thrust of Alan's article is that the Policy idea of two years' residence is not set in tablets of stone. Who is or is not an acceptably settled Sponsor will depend entirely on the facts in each case. The requirement is the same regardless of which Parent visa is chosen - Alan happened to write the article in March 2008, a time when Contributory Parent visas were particularly fashionable, that's all. So where the prospective Sponsor is a co-habiting Partner and he is also an Australian Citizen, in theory the Parent visa application can be made after Son-in-Law has been living in Australia again for as little as 3 months. Personally, I think that one must apply a hefty dose of common-sense to that proposition. In particular:- 1. By what means has the Son-in-Law become an Australian Citizen? Is he someone who was a Citizen by birth and he and his family have always lived in Australia apart from a brief sojourn when Son-in-Law went abroad and married hiis Wife? If this is the factual scenario then it follows that Son-in-Law ought to be able to slot back into Australian life pretty quickly and to become "settled" fairly fast. Where Son-in-Law is the only member of his own family who has Australian Citizenship and he has no rellies of his own in Australia then this second chap might not become "settled" in as little as 3 months. 2. Also, regardless of the identity of the prospective Sponsor, the reason why Policy says what it says is because a surprisingly high number of people immigrate to Australia but do not stay in Australia long term. The official statistic is that about 25% of people who immigrate to Australia do not stay there and the vast majority of this 25% leave within 2 years of reaching Australia initially. If there is any doubt about whether the Child is going to stay in Australia, it makes no sense to encourage his/her Parents to go rushing out there in hot pursuit. 3. Parents are not inanimate dolls. How do we know that they will love Australia as much as their Child does? The Parents have had at least 20 more years in the home country than their Child has had, after all. Their social network in the home country is likely to be stronger than that of their child. Therefore I personally believe that one shouldn't rush into encouraging ideas about Parent migration. I believe that a better plan of attack is for the Child to move to Oz first. Then I think his/her Parents should be encouraged to make at least one lengthy visit to Oz, so that they get used to the daily household routines of "living in Australia" - which is fairly mundane - instead of just making a short visit during which life won't be "normal" because the temptation will be to drag the Parents around in a mad rush to make sure that they see all the local sights, if you see what I mean. "Normal" life is pretty boring - especially when the Parents don't know many people in the area of their own age. I know a British Mum who visits Oz every year in order to visit her daughter in Brisbane but the mother actually hates Australia. She feels bored, lonely, isolated and trapped out there and she is always relieved when she can return to her own friends in the UK, having "done her duty" for the year, if you like. When Mum lived with Daughter in the UK, it was natural to assume that Mum would want to move to Australia asap. However once Mum started living on her own in the UK, she made new friends and has positively blossomed. She relishes her independence, everyone has discovered. Separation always sounds unbearable in advance and in the abstract. In reality, though, people become used to it very quickly and it is not nearly as bad as they thought it was going to be. Therefore I don't think the people who devised this part of the Policy are dim or that defeating Policy is necessarily the best way to proceed. Cheers Gill

Hi again, Tracy I couldn't say too much in my reply to you yesterday because the forum software only allows about 10,000 characters in a post. FWIW, my personal view is that a British Parent should consider whether or not it would be possible to rake together the price of a CPV and that they should try to do a cost/benefit analysis between a CPV143 or a CAPV864 and an APV804. Mary's father made a couple of visits to DIAC in Adelaide during 2008/2009 when he was visiting Australia for 6 months. DIAC told him that if he didn't want to pay for 2 CPVs then he should consider the APV804 visa instead. Not unreasonably, he asked why anyone would bother with a CPV if there is a substantially cheaper option available? The DIAC lady said she thought that some Parents find CPVs more attractive because the visa process is completed quickly and blah blah. Personally, I think it is more complicated than that. You asked about the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, even though you didn't know its name. That will provide "cheap" drugs in theory but the "saving" is only notional because the Parent has paid a hefty premium for a CPV in the first place. Similarly, a CPV holder gets full Medicare from Day One but s/he has already paid for that via the cost of the CPV. We've found with my own mother (who is now 91 and she has had a CPV143 since 2006) that Medicare in Perth are so good that she really wouldn't benefit from private medical insurance on top. However, we've already paid as much as private medical insurance would cost because we bought a CPV143. I'm not sure what happens about income tax. Mum is a Permanent Resident so she has to pay income tax in Australia. Somebody who is only a Temporary Resident in Oz is entitled to claim the full amount of the Personal Allowance both in the UK and in Oz but I don't know how the holder of a Bridging Visa is treated for income tax purposes in Oz. One would need to ask Alan Collett about that, I believe. With old folks homes (god forbid) it doesn't matter about the patient's visa status. Anybody who needs Aged Care is only expected to pay as much as s/he can afford and the Government pays any shortfall. This is equally true for both Temporary and Permanent Residents but again, I think one would need to ask Alan Collett what happens if the person has a Bridging Visa? Theoretically, the holder of a Bridging Visa is not permitted to work in Australia. However, under Policy DIAC are usually willing to grant Permission to Work to any APV applicant who wants to work in Australia. DIAC recognise that keeping an elderly person waiting for several years for a visa is not the Australian Government's finest moment of glory; a lot of APV applicants are perfectly fit and they are bored by enforced idleness. Bunnings encourage Seniors to apply for jobs with them in the same way as B&Q do in the UK. Bunnings don't pay a fortune but they do keep the person busy and a bit of extra money is better than nothing. The Australian Age Pension is not payable until somebody has had PR in Oz for 10 years. Even then, the Age Pension only pays the difference between the frozen amount arriving from the UK and whatever the minimum Age Pension is in Australia each year. I think this consideration is about the same for a CPV holder and an APV applicant **at the moment** because the APV applicant only has to wait for about 8 years at present. Two years after the APV804 has been granted, the Parent can go to Centrelink where one or more other Benefits might be payable (eg Special Benefit) which would tide the person over between Year Two and Year 10. A CPV holder cannot claim Special Benefit before the expiry of the 10 year CPV Assurance of Support. I have not investigated this in detail because my mother is now 91 so we just have to wait and see what happens, I reckon. It might be worth delving through the Centrelink website or go and ask someone at Centrelink - they are usually sympathetic and helpful, I am told. AAnother factor is that the Parent is not going to get any younger and s/he might become disabled. Nobody can claim a Disability Support Pension in Oz until they have had PR for 10 years first UNLESS the disabilty arose after s/he first obtained PR in Oz. My mother is in a wheelchair but we knew she would not be entitled to a Disability Support Pension. What we didn't think about was whether my sister would be able to claim the Carer Allowance for looking after Mum? Elaine took Mum with her when she went to sort out the CSH Card for Mum. The Centrelink lady asked whether Elaine was claiming a Carer Allowance? No - we hadn't realised that Elaine might be entitled to do so. Elaine only gets the minimum Carer amount each week because she also has a part time job but she gets about $25 a week, she told me. Then Elaine's tax accountant told us about something that sounds like a scam to Elaine and I but apparently it does work..... When someone gets a CPV 143, a Bond of either $10,000 or $14,000 must also be paid. It is repaid in full after 10 years as long as there haven't been any recoverable claims on Centrelink Benefits during that time. The Assurer receives interest on the capital deposited twice a year. According to the tax accountant, there is no reason why the Parent can't claim Special Benefit during Years Three to Ten. The Parent stops claiming as soon as Centrelink have paid out the full $10K or $14K. However the capital remains in the Bond Account for the full 10 years - Centrelink cannot touch that money until the 10 years is up. So the Assurer continues to get the interest and at the end of the 10 years, the money in the Bond Account is just given to Centrelink. The Parent has had full use of the money several years before... Well - we didn't know that and the inventiveness of accountants never ceases to amaze me but we haven't done anything about it ourselves. It sounds as if lots of other CPV holders may have done so, however. FINALLY - depending on what the figures look like on the back of the proverbial fag packet, what about the possibility that the Child in Australia borrows the money in order to pay for a CPV? These are just the issues that I have become aware of. It is not necessarily an exhaustive list. You can see why I think it is too complicated for a mere mortal like me to try to tackle the sums, though! Cheers Gill PS: @Alan Collett (who I know reads this forum.) Alan, you might be cringeing at the amount that I say you would be able to work out. However, you do have much a better chance of working it out accurately than I or the next ordinary mortal might have, I believe. Also, there might be other considerations that I haven't thought about because they wouldn't apply to us but they might apply to somebody else. I'm not "merely" taking your name in vain, my friend.