Quote:
Originally Posted by alanblockley
Hi There
I've just been granted a 138 visa. I've seen what you mean. There is a 5 year expiry on the visa, but it does say indefinitly.
The expiry date just means that after the expiry, if you want to leave the country, you'll need to apply for a Residents Return Visa (RRV). I have no idea why they do this, I suppose it to encourage you to become an Australia citizen. If you have citizenship, theres no need to worry about the expiry on your visa.
My concern with this is when do the rules apply and who to? Do they apply to visa's granted after a certain date, or just everyone. If they apply to everyone there's going to be some people that have been in Oz 18 months that have now got to wait another 2 and half years before they can apply, where as they would have been preparing for the citizenship test now.
Hope we're all well.
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Hi Alan
A lot of migrants to Oz do not aspire to Australian Citizenship. Malaysians, for example, don't want it. The reason is because Malaysia will not recognise dual citizenship, and a lot of investments etc in Malaysia are restricted to Citizens only, as are rights to work in Malaysia. The UK is sanguine about dual Citizenship but a LOT of other countries are not.
Also a lot of people obtain visas for Oz long before they really have any wish to live there. Some simply want to make pots of money outside Australia for many years, contributing zilch to the Australian economy, but if they got half a chance they would rock up in Oz aged 70 wanting the Australian Aged Pension, all the other concessions for Seniors, full Medicare and the whole bang-shoot.
Others still have no real wish ever to live in Australia. They are perfectly content in other countries but they want a bolt-hole in Oz just in case they ever need to get out of their own countries in a hurry and move to somewhere safer to live.
The only real way to control this is to restrict entry to Oz in succeeding years unless the visa holder demonstrates a genuine commitment to Oz in some way. Consider geography as well. If you want a 3 day shopping spree in Oz, it is a mere hop & skip from the Pacific Rim countries. Some would simply commute between Oz and their home countries if they could. Hence there is a need to spend 2 years out of every 5 in Oz.
That won't catch all the commuters because the idea is 730 nights in aggregate in Oz in every 5-year cycle, so they can still commute, in effect. However, RRV criteria also require the person to demonstrate a genuine commitment to Oz by investing money there, having dependents who genuinely do live in Oz and so on.
I couldn't understand RRVs at all when I first heard about them until someone explained why they are needed. Nobody can be prevented from leaving Oz, but they can be prevented from returning if their alleged commitment to Oz is not genuine.
I and a couple of others had some fun with a Mr Habib a couple of years back on another forum. He had a skilled 136 visa which had been granted 4.5 years earlier. After a brief validation visit, he left Oz because he could get better IT experience elsewhere. Then he discovered that he could earn more money outside of Oz too...
The cost of living in Oz had also proved to be higher than he had expected, so Mr Habib needed to earn wads elsewhere so that he would eventually be able to afford to live to Oz. HIs final story, with 6 months to go and about 3 weeks in total in Oz under his belt, was that he had fallen in love with a lady he had recently met in Syria or somewhere.
Mr Habib reckoned that his new love could not be nurtured unless he remained outside Oz for another 2-3years. He was confident that Australian IT wages would improve during that time-frame as well. He would be more than happy to settle in Oz once he had satisfied his offshore shopping list, we gathered. He felt sure that the forum readers would be convinced of his predicament and that our combined expertise would be able to assure him that DIAC would co-operate with him in his future plans.
You can imagine the reaction he got....
Cheers
Gill
Visa Expiry
Kellie x
