Bridgeman

My spouse contacted Teachers Pension and they sent him details of his personal contributions. He then filled in a form D11 Deductible amount of undeducted purchase price of a foreign pension or annuity (which you can find on the ATO website). He sent this off to the ATO and they told him how much he could claim as UPP.

Thanks for that. Good to know.

I am with another bank in the UK and hope they won't follow suit as I have various UK pensions paid in as I prefer to have control over when I bring the money over to my Australian account. . The UK state pension isn't a problem as you say, it can be paid direct into an Australian account but I have a couple of other private pensions which will not pay into a foreign bank account. I would be interested in any suggestions.

The vaccination rollout is being controlled by the GPs and the capacity they can cope with. Getting vaccinated is not as easy as the government are making out. It's alright opening up the progamme to over 40s in Victoria, but just look what happened. You need to get all your ducks in a row before you make announcements. My friend, just under 70, contacted her local medical centre recently, only to he told, oh we can't take your booking as we are still vaccinating 80 year olds. They also don't like you going to another medical centre. Another friend tried this and was given short shrift. Incidentally we don't have large vaccination centres here in Queensland, walk up or otherwise. However, I do think that without a high vaccination rate, we are just sitting ducks here in Australia if there is an outbreak that cannot be contained. Also, getting vaccinated protects not only yourself but helps prevent you spreading it to other people. It doesn't really make sense to be complaining about borders not opening unless you are willing to get vaccinated as until there is a high level of vaccination, it's unlikely to happen.

If you read all the information about this visa on the home affairs website you will see that the application can be submitted from inside Australia. If you look at the actual application form you will see that the application needs to be sent to the Perth office. It might a good idea to read everything through before you start the application.

There's nothing to prevent you submitting/posting the application while you are in Australia, but you won't get a bridging visa when your visitor visa expires. You will need to be offshore when the visa is granted.

You need to find the forms and read all the notes before you start. The information you need is right there in the notes. It says the form covers a family unit. You will find help on here, but you do need to do the groundwork yourself.

The notes are at the bottom of the fees table. You just need to scroll down.

As the 143 is an offshore visa, they would not get a bridging visa to allow them to stay in Australia. They would have to leave when their visitor visa expired

Can I ask when you sent off your application? I need to renew mine but the website is saying not to apply unless you need to travel urgently.

I need to renew my UK passport but have been reluctant to do so due to the long delays in the post and the possibility it might go astray. I got the photos done just before lockdown.

A couple of months back I posted a query about renewal of UK passports which had expired. I got my photos done and then Covid19 happened so I haven't as yet put in the application. I am assuming that the process may take longer in the current circumstances but am just wondering if anyone has actually applied during the current circumstances and how long it took. I don't want to have to get photos redone. The website just says it is taking longer.

Well fortunately my postal vote arrived on Friday just in time. Although they said it was 'safe' to go, and that there was social distancing, maybe inside but I saw pictures of long queues outside the prepolling stations and guess what, people lined up one after the other, no social distancing there. There was no way I was going to go and queue up with them. I since heard that they are going to waive fines for over 70s. It would be interesting to hear whether there is a big jump in cases now.

No, apparently not. They have been given the powers to cancel if they want but they don't seem inclined to.

That's not quite true, it's only the pension you have to wait 10 years for. You can access benefits same as all other visa holders, used to be after 2 years now I think it may have been extended to 4. They are also looking at waiving this for new visa holders so watch the news.