contributary parent visa

[Gollywobbler]

Hi HB

I'm not offended by what you said originally. I do my best to be as precise as possible but sometimes I'm not thinking carefully & clearly enough - which is my fault, not yours.

The 6,500 visas definitely means 6,500 individual humans. Therefore CPVs for you and your wife means only 6,498 visas available for others.

Alan Collett and I have been chatting about this on the Go Matilda forum as well in the last few days. Please see here:

cpv queue - Topic Powered by eve community

I really think that the POPC need to explain how the whole thing works because the rest of us simply don't have enough of the underlying information in order to be able to make any real sense out of whatever it is that DIAC are trying to tell us via the Queue Calculator or from the comment that the POPC person made recently in an e-mail to Alan.

We applied for Mum's CPV back in 2005. In 2003 (when the CPV was new) 2004 and again in 2005, the POPC were in the habit of publishing a Newsletter in August each year, which was published on the DIAC website.

I thought that was a very sensible idea because the 2005 Newsletter told me to expect that processing Mum's application would probably take about 9 months. It was spot on. It took 9.5 months from start to finish.

I don't know why they discontinued the Newsletter. Why don't they just do two a year, one in July at the beginning of the new Program Year and then another one in, say, early January? It was only 1.5 pages long and it told applicants what we needed to know. It can't have taken much time to produce it and I think that re-introducing it would be very warmly welcomed by everyone awaiting or considering CPVs.

Best wishes

Gill

[Gollywobbler]

Hi All

An amazingly helpful CPV applicant has replied to me on another forum. S/he has had an e-mail from the POPC dated 15th August 2008. This is what s/he says:

For what it is worth the following is the email I received from POPC on 15 Aug.


"I can confirm that your application has been received by the Perth Offshore Parents Centre (POPC). The application was received on 01 April 2008.


For Contributory Parent visa categories (subclasses CA-143 and UT-173),it is taking approximately 10 - 12 months from lodgement date until the case is allocated to a case officer. Your application is registered and awaiting allocation, currently we are processing applications that we received in the last week of July 2007 for allocation to case officers.


Once your case is allocated to a Case Officer, they will make an assessment of the application and request outstanding documents such as a police clearance certificate.


The processing times for the 143 and 173 are the same.

As your application has not yet been assessed it will not have a queue date in which to place in the online queue calculator. Once it has been the case officer will advise you what is your queue date.

This program year financial year)the quota of places for the 143/173 combined is 5900. The calculator will allow for this, therefore choose the visa type that you applied for when using the calculator”

Before anyone panics about the idea of 5,900 visas instead of 6,500, please don’t worry. Remember that there are 4 visas in the Contributory Parent Scheme. The 143 & 173 are the two offshore visas. The 864 & 884 are the two onshore versions. So all they have done is to decide that demand is likely to split 5,900/600. Which tallies with the 2007/8 figures for the split anyway:

Media Release: Capping of Contributory Parent category visas

Somebody on the big BE thread says they are now allocating CO’s to applications received in August 2007. This is nothing to worry about. Some CO’s are more cautious than others. The cautious ones are very conservative about what they say. The more bullish ones will provide “today’s information” and just hope that the applicants will understand that mid August is more of an average date than an actual date.

Best wishes

Gill

[gliddon]

I'm new to this site (wish we'd found it earlier). We had acknowledgement August 7th 2007 but still no sign of a case oficer. Our problem - apart from general depression, frustration etc which I gather we share with many - is that we've lost any confidence we ever had in our agency.They cost an arm and a leg, never keep us properly informed and make pretty basic mistakes we have to chase them for. But we're reluctant to ditch them at this stage in case it causes further delays. Can we get more information than the agent is giving us by approaching Perth direct? And if so, do we tell them we're not happy with our agent? Don't want to do anything to rock the boat - it's rocky enough already! Comments from anyone with similar experience would be much appreciated.

[Gollywobbler]

Hello gliddon

Welcome to Poms in Oz.

Please see this thread as well:

the ALL NEW SPARKLY contributory parents visa thread!!! - Page 75 : British Expat Discussion Forum

I've linked you to the last page of the British Expats thread because it is 75 pages all, has been going for several months and it is unlikely that you will want to wade through the whole thing. You might want, say, to go back to the beginning of July and follow progress since then, perhaps?

Somebody on there has had an e-mail from the POPC very recently advising that they are currently allocating Case Officers to applications received in the first 2 weeks of August 2007, so you should hear something any day now.

Generally DIAC are reluctant to discuss an application with the applicant if s/he has appointed an Agent to be the Authorised Recipient of all communications with DIAC. Duplication of explanations etc is time-wasting for the staff and can lead to misunderstanding and confusion between client and agent. That said, the POPC do sometimes make an exception about this if you wish to try.

They stress that their preferred method of communication is e-mail and that they prefer people to use parents@immi.gov.au rather than the on-line form. However their contact details and phone number are here:

Contact us - Department of Immigration and Citizenship

You cannot come to any harm if you choose to dispense with your Agent's services at this stage. The POPC will gladly guide you through the rest of the process themselves and personally I believe that it is miles better to be in direct touch with the POPC if you are not satisfied with your Agent.

If you wish to terminate the involvement of your Agent as far as communication with the POPC is concerned, you would need to complete Form 956, scan it, save it as a pdf file and e-mail it to the POPC:

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/956.pdf

Something like 53% of CPV applicants do not use Agents according to DIAC's statistics. They get their visas all the same and it does not take any longer than if they do use an Agent.

If you decide to take over yourself, everyone here will help if you want help, and the POPC would provide as much help as you could possibly need. It is certainly a LOT less frustrating to be in direct contact with DIAC yourself than to be dependent on gleaning news from someone who is not interested in keeping you up to date and probably doesn't have any up to date information about CPVs anyway.

Best wishes

Gill

[lizg]

Gill

Just had a look at my acknowledgment letter that was dated 16th July 2008 and it states that they were processing applications lodged on 25 July 2007 (very precise!) They don't seem to have got very far when six weeks later they have only reached the beginning of August?

Regards

Liz

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Liz

Someone on the big British Expats thread has had an e-mail from the POPC saying they are now allocatiing COs to applications lodged in the first fortnight of August 2007.

My guess is that what they do in the replies they send is to chop at least a month off the date of what they are actually doing. They don't get paid enough to want to risk living dangerously, honey.....

I think they describe Tail End Charlie. The manager of the POPC told me himself, on the phone, that the POPC cannot refuse a visa application without his own say-so. Unless he knows more law than the rest of his staff, he would not be Da Boss. He cannot realistically deal with every potential visa refusal file on the spot. I think the reality is much more fluid than might seem apparent.

Hugz

Gill
xx

[gliddon]

Hi Gill,

Many thanks for prompt and helpful reply - much appreciated and makes us feel considerably better.

Mary

[lizg]

Time Tail End Charlie (brilliant name) got an assistant! lol
Liz x

[SEFFnSARAH]

Hi Gliddon
Thought you might be reassured to know you are not only ones fed up with your agent. We too are frustrated. OH given blarney on phone and fell for it big style. We have paid a fortune (applying for 176), put mum on to them (CPV) so she using same agent so same as you we are reluctant to rock boat and fork out more. Now it impossible to get any info, person you speak to has to find answers and call back next day (can't speak to anyone there and then - hopeless). Have since been to Emigrate, found this site etc etc if we hadn't been so quick to start the process and not jump at the first agent we found we probably wouldn't be any further in the queues but we might be slightly richer (enough for medicals at least.)
Keep your chin up, mum further behind you in queue. We all just have to keep remembering - it'll be worth the wait in the end.

Sarah

[OldiesRUs]

My OH fell for a line too. He went to one of these migrant days with my son, got talking to someone who gave him (as we now know) a load of bull***t. To cut a long story short, six months later, we were still no further on as the guy never returned emails, phone calls etc. In the end, I took control, contacted GoMatilda and the application was on it's way to Aus within a week! So we would have been 6 months ahead of where we are now and would probably already be in Oz as there wouldn't have been the famous backlog to deal with. Funnily enough, the original agent did actually contact us 8 months after the initial contact - he was told, not very politely, go away.

Only consolation is that we did not pay any money to the first agent.

Jean