[Gollywobbler]

This question is actually further complicated by today’s as-yet-unclear announcement from the Minister about the quota of Parent visa places for the 2008/9 Program year. The current number of Parent visas available each year is 4,500 in total. Of these, 1,000 are reserved for non-contributory Parents and 3,500 are available for Contributory Parents.

The Minister – with a singular lack of clarity – has announced today that as of 1st July 2008, for the 2008/9 Program Year, there will be a total of 8,500 “Parent Visas” – an increase of 4,000 on top of the existing quota. However, whoever wrote the Press release has not seen fit to tell us what the breakdown is between the non-contributory and Contributory Parent visa places. You could try ringing Simon Dowding, the contact named in the Press release, but my guess is that he will not be able to give you the breakdown. I suspect that he is a Press Officer who has simply turned a set of notes into something media friendly and that he does not have any details himself.

I think the best bet is to leave it to Alan Collett to ask the POPC tomorrow. They will know the breakdown and Alan has promised that he will confirm it as soon as he knows it for sure. There is no point in everyone phoning the POPC. One phone call or e-mail between Alan & the POPC will be enough for us all. Alan has been actively campaigning for 4,000 additional Contributory Parent visas a year, and he has done a huge amount, un-sung, unpaid and behind the scenes, to try to get the Australian Government to go along with his views about this. We will see what tomorrow produces.

If the whole of the extra 4,000 visas has been allocated to the Contributory Parent scheme then we should see the processing times for CPVs come back down to around 9-12 months. This would be in line with the Ministerial Target for processing times, as recorded in the 2006-7 DIAC Annual Report. If so, then it will have a knock-on effect on which visa you choose for your Parents and what they do before it will be safe for them to apply for CP or CAP visas sponsored by you.

So for the moment we have to leave this part of the question on “hold” really until we have confirmation of the breakdown and can therefore calculate the likely processing times for CPVs and CAPVs. Meanwhile, please see this thread because Alan may update it before I am up tomorrow morning:

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/35280-increase-number-parent-visas-2008-09-a.html

I will post a further reply to you on this point once we can work out the processing times reasonably accurately, but my feeling is that we cannot do that just yet. I’d rather wait for Alan to confirm whether the increase has been split or just what is going to happen.

In the meantime, I think it would be very risky for you to try to launch any application for Parent migration for your Parents just yet anyway, because of the “settled” issue.

Min, please study the two case-reports carefully, please. How close do you reckon you are to being able to satisfy the question of whether or not you have become “settled” in Oz? Your answer on this point is absolutely crucial to helping you to work out how best to play the visa-ball on your Parents’ behalf.