Hi Minlady
From what you say about your Dad, it could be that the MOC would want him to see a geriatrician but I would say don't jump the gun. If the MOC wants a geriatirician to examne Dad, the MOC is likely to ask specific questions that he wants answered - as with my Mum. The MOC might decide that nothing extra is required about your Mum because she has no specific medical history to worry about.
The oldest CPV holder that I've heard of was an old dear from Devon. She was 97 when her CPV was granted in 2005. She was still hiking around on Dartmoor in her late 80s apparently, and refused to consider moving to Oz until she decided she was too old to continue to live by herself. She thought about selling her bungalow and moving into an old folks home but her only child - a daughter living in Victoria - persuaded her to move out to Australia instead. There was a write up about her in a free newspaper thingy that was kicking around in Australia House.
The Panel Doctor in Southampton, when he examined my Mum, said that his own oldest CPV applicant had been a father aged 92. He was hale and heart apparently and the Panel Doctor had heard that he had gone to settle in Oz. Age by itself is defo not an issue with this particular visa!
With regard to getting an Agent to help with your Parents' application, I definitely think it would be a good idea, but I definitely would NOT send your Parents traipsing to Oxford to see Ian Harrop, excellent though I think he is. It simply isn't necessary to wear them out with such a journey there & back.
When poeple are as old as your Parents and my Mum, they do tend to assume that it is necesary for them to have at least one face-to-face meeting with any professional advisor, but in the case of a CPV application for such elderly Parents such a meeting is nothing more than a bit of
PR and window-dressing, frankly. The real work is nearly all done between the Agent sand the child who will be the Sponsor and the Assurer and in your own family's case I suspect that you will need more careful guidance from the Agent than your Parents will, actually.
It is imperative that somebody pins you and your OH down to make sure that the possibilities for his own Parents do not get ignored in the immediate quest to help your Parents instead.
It is also pretty clear that you are not going to wait for DIAC's desired two years before you will want your Parents to make a CPV application. The earlier you want to try to make the application, the more professional help you will need so as to make the aplication watertight in terms of providing up-front evidence of your "settled" lifestyle. This bit comes down to you and the Agent between you - your Parents can't really help with it. You do not want the application to end up in the Tribunal, either, so you really should choose an Agent who understands what is do-able with an early application and what would be just too plain risky, I feel.
I'm not an Agent, but since you have only been in Oz for 2 months so far, I would be deeply reluctant even to think about an application for your Parents this side of September 2008. Equally, though, I wouldn't look to trying to obstruct you until 18 months after you have moved to Oz. I do not believe that that degree of caution would be needed in view of your Parents' ages. That would be caution just for the sake of it, which is not on with such an elderly couple, especially when the facts might support going ahead a year earlier.
Presumably you will also want to get your Parents out to Oz very promptly after their CPV application has been submitted and to keep them closer to Oz than to the UK from then on? If my hunch is right, then it would make a lot of sense to use an Agent in Oz, I reckon.
If the "window dressing" with your Parents is important then Shirley & Sheila are good Agents and they are in Carrington. According to Google Maps, that is only 20 miles from Macclesfield and the route does not seem to involve the risk of horrendous traffic jams. If
PR is the name of the game then one of them should be willing to get into a car and drive over to Macclesfield in my view. Their website is here:
Permanent Migration Visa : AMA Ltd
Having said that, neither of them is a lawyer and I don't know how good they would be on the potentially tricky legal question of whether or not your lifestyle in Oz has becone sufficiently settled, plus there are only two of them. If they are snowed under, they sometimes say that they will act but that it will be 2 or 3 months before they can actually start work on your behalf. (That is what they said when I rang to ask about the possibility of them acting for my Mum.) Not a problem if you don't mind waiting but unacceptable if you do not want to wait, plainly.
Tony Coates now works with Ian Harrop and Tony would be absolutely OK on the question of whether or not you are settled, plus I think your Parents would like him, though they would only speak with him on the phone. But I suspect it would be easier for you to use an Agent in the same time-zone as you, ie in Oz.
Go Matilda are in Southampton and in Oz. They can actually switch seamlessly between the two according to whether your Parents need a hand or whether you do. Lorraine Beaumont at the UK end would be as good with your Parents as Tony Coates would be, and you would have the woman-to-woman bit between Lorraine & your Mum, which never hurts with the elderly. (Go Matilda are a bit cheaper than Ian Harrop, as well.)
There are some good Agents in Perth, too.
So unless it is essential that there should be a face-to-face meeting between the chosen Agent and your Parents, I'd say you should defer the question of selecting an Agent for the time being. Let us wait and see what the family actually wants to do first (ie whether your Parents want to move to Oz without waiting tfor the CPV to be ready.) And above all, let us give you more time in which to become fully settled in Oz, I would suggest.
Best wishes
Gill