Contributory Parent Visas - URGENT

[Gollywobbler]

Hi All

Alan Collett of Go Matilda has said this morning that the grant of further Contributory Parent and Parent have been suspended until further notice.

Alan's news article about this is here:

Go Matilda - Your Gateway to Australia - News

The current quota for visas is 1,000 a year for non-contributory Parents and 3,500 visas for Contributory Parents. It seems that DIAC have granted as many as they are permitted to grant for the 2007/8 Program Year, which ends on 30th June 2008.

I am shocked, to be honest. I was expecting them to shut the door but thought it maybe wouldn't have to happen till perhaps April or May. They are only half way through the Program Year at the moment, after all.

Best wishes

Gill

[Alan Collett]

Gill,

To confirm: the clear inference from the conversation I had with the POPC this afternoon was that the 2007/08 program is close to being filled - the emphasis has been on assessing applications within a halfway reasonable timeframe, but there have been so many applications for CP visas lodged in the last 12 months the program has been substantially consumed in the first 6 months.

This rather reflects my concerns you may recall I expressed a few months ago following my telephone conversation with a chap in DIAC Central Office when I was advised the number of primary applications on hand was the equivalent to 2 years of CP visa grants based on existing program totals.

Given this the reasonable question to ask of the Department is why they didn't see this issue coming. My hunch is the change of Government may have something to do with it ...

Best regards.

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Alan

Thanks for the additional information.

I can understand the idea that they may invoke the formal Queue process and so on, but what about where the CO is already in touch and final processing has begun? People may have had meds done - on request - and so forth.

Do they "earmark" a couple of visas out of the pile at the time when they ask a couple to get the Meds and PCCs done, so that anyone who is at an advanced stage with the final processing should still get a visa pretty quickly, do you know?

Hopefully Labor will stick to its historical promises and increase the quota for Parents.

Best wishes

Gill

[june coates]

hi all,
i am in wa at present,on 676 visa,awaiting cp.visa. i have been allocated co,and police checks done.i go for medicals this week.just wondereing what chance i have now of having my cp visa granted before my visa elapses in november,this year.
june

[johatts]

Originally Posted by june coates

hi all,
i am in wa at present,on 676 visa,awaiting cp.visa. i have been allocated co,and police checks done.i go for medicals this week.just wondereing what chance i have now of having my cp visa granted before my visa elapses in november,this year.
june

June,

Hope meds go well. My parents (Mr and Mrs CazBeckham) have got CO, had meds and PCC done. All my AOS stuff has all been done and sorted. I have the bond paid and cleared! All they were waiting for was clearance of meds and paying the last monies! Ouch huh!

Saying that tho, I am glad that this country (Oz) does look at numbers of immigrants and not let as many as it likes in. This is actually one of the reasons why we liked it. People couldnt understand how we have to wait 9 months to the VISA and why we couldnt just go! Im sure some people though that we jumped on the plane and just went!

Im sure that you will be fine June! Keep an eye out on here for Alan Colletts updates! Im sure things will get moving soom enough!

Mum, Dad....we WILL see you soon! Like I said, my banner at the airport now will read "TOOK YA LONG ENOUGH DIDNT IT?" Ha! Ha! Ha!

Best wishes to everyone waiting and to everyone here........aint life great eh!

[Gollywobbler]

Hi June

Please see this British Expats thread, where I first read about the CPV situation this morning. There has been a fair amount of discussion since Alan's original post:

Contributory Parent Visa Processing Halted : British Expat Discussion Forum

Just a few weeks back when I read that you had reached Perth only to hear from your CO a couple of days later, I thought, "Uh oh. I've pushed the poor lady into the hassle of a long winded application for a 12 month stay when a 3 month ETA would probably have sufficed."

Now - happily - it looks as if you took the right gamble in the first place.

Don't worry if the processing becomes protracted. If your 676 visa expires before they are ready to grant your CPV, you will simply need to make a very short trip to Bali or Singapore where they will grant you another 12 months on another 676 visa very swiftly.

Savta and her husband (PIO membrs) did this during 2007. The first 12 month stay was due to expire and they were in Melbourne. About a month before it expired they went to Auckland for a few days and were given another 12 month 676 visa whilst there. Since then their CP 143 visa has been granted, which meant a second trip to Auckland, but the up-side is that they were with their close family for all except just a few days of the overall processing time.

My mother came back to the UK when her own 676 visa expired. She arrived here exactly 5 weeks before her CP visa was granted and then returned to Perth 3 weeks after the grant. Both of the COs involved (in Perth & London respectively) assured me that they would not require Mum to go anyurther than Singapore etc etc, and were most anxious to avoid putting such an old lady through two long-haul flights when doing that was avoidable.

However, Mum still has several rellies in the UK so it suited us better for herto come home for a while - we ended up reassuring the COs that Mum's returning to the UK was really not a big deal from hers or her family's point of view and that we all preferred it to the Singapore or Bali options!!

Best wishes

Gill

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Johatts

If you can, I would suggest contacting Sleeping Beauty over on British Expats. It sounds like her Parents are at the same stage as your own. They are not using an Agent so I imagine that SB will be on to the POPC as soon as they wake up on Tuesday! She and Alan Collett between them seem to be spearheading the taskof discovering the details of all this.

Sent you a PM.

Cheers

Gill

[claire&fred]

Hi Gill

Sorry to sound thick. What exactly does this mean? My mum applied for CPV back in May 07. She does not have CO yet and has not been asked to do medicals or PCC as yet.

Claire

[chrisf]

Hi Gill have had my visa lodged since second of october , Is everything on stop till july now, or do they still work on the processing but wait till after july to rubber stamp the visa

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Claire, Hi Chrisf

My impression is that so far, the POPC have dropped a bombshell on Alan Collett pretty much out of the blue and that, as yet, there has been no other announcement from DIAC.

Last June, Alan discovered that DIAC have received about double the number of CP applications as they have visas available for. They stopped granting visas last June but only for a month or so.

I heard at the time that there had been discussions within DIAC about possibly implementing the formal Queueing process, which has not been used with CP visas hitherto. However, I heard no more about the possibility so I assumed that the idea had been shelved.

As of today, George Lombard on British Expats seems to think that the possibility of the full, formal Queueing process is now very much on the cards but I have no idea whether they would suddenly impose it on existing applicants or whether they would say that it would only apply to applications received on or after dd/mm/yyyy.

If they do decide to implement the formal Queue business, then it will work in the same way as the process works for non-contributory Parents.

With non-contributory Parents, the drill is as follows:

1. When the application is received it is checked for basic validity.

2. If the application is valid, then the Parent is asked to produce Police Checks and Meds.

3. If both of those are OK, the Parent is given a formal Queue Date** and is added to the official Queue.

4. By the time the Parent reaches the head of the Queue, it is odds-on that the PCCs and Meds will have expired since they only have a shelf life of a year. So the Parent is asked to produce a second lot of PCCs and Meds.

5. If these new checks are also OK then the Parent is asked to organise the Assurance of Support, pay the 2nd Instalment and the visa is then granted.

** Queue Date: The significance of the Queue Date is that it enables Parents to use the Queue Calculator tool to see how many applicants are ahread of themselves in the Queue. From that, they can divide by the number of visas available each year and calculate their likely remaining time in the Queue.

This electronic tool appears to work for the Contributory Parent categories but that is misleading. It has never been given any live data for the CP categories. It is running on test data only, put there to prove that the software works OK.

With the non-contributory Parent categories, the Queue calculator works for real and is said to be reliable. Please see here:

Parent Visa Processing Priorities - Family - Visas & Immigration

JAJ on British Expats fiddled with the Queue Calculator a few weeks back and got it to work using a Queue Date of 27 November 2007. Seemingly at least one Parent applicant was added to the Queue on that date.

I've just tried it, using JAJ's date. The result is roughly 13,130 applicants who are ahead of the Parent who was added to the Queue on 27/11/2007. With 1,000 places available each year, the 27/11/2007 non-contributory Parent is in for a very long wait.

It wouldn't be anything like that bad for Contributory Parents, however. There are 3.5 times as many visas available each year, and at the moment demand is only about double the available supply.

Best wishes

Gill