Options for my mum - parent visa help please

[cabbagesahoy!]

Hello everyone! advice needed.

I am British - now with a temp. spouse visa* and my husband is Australian.

My mum is 66, single, has a pacemaker and a bit of a dodgy tum but still works and is in general good health. She would eventually like to live with us.

Now I have 2 brothers - although she only has contact with 1 of them am I right in thinking this will stop her from joining us? (50% rule)

What other options are there? How long can a visitor stay for? I hear there is a visa for aged parents where they can stay a year? Is this correct? Any help/experience greatfully received!



*Came through in 3 weeks! - many thanks to all for the help and advice

[Gollywobbler]

Hello Cabbagesahoy

Unless one of your brothers also migrates to Australia and becomes a Permanent Resident, Parent migration will not be possible for your mother unfortunately.

If she wants to come and live with you, would she be able to afford an Investor Retirement visa?

Investor Retirement (Subclass 405)

If she could afford this then it would probably be her best option, I suspect.

If not, she will not be able to "live" in Australia and this fact will have to be accepted, regrettably. DIAC are normally pretty good about allowing British Parents to visit Oz for up to 12 months at a time but what they will not do is to permit the Parent to use repeated long stay tourist visas as a means to "live in Australia" as opposed to "just visiting periodically."

Tourist Visa (Subclass 676)

They used to turn a sympathetic blind eye to the British Mum who is widowed etc - they did so with my mother for several years. However they have become much stricter about this in recent years. The older the Parent the more DIAC worry that the Parent might go to Oz for a long visit and, whilst there, become too frail or unwell to be able to leave Australia when the permitted period of stay ends.

Amanda Vanstone (the Minister before last) ordered a crackdown in 2004. She went on the record as saying that there were hundreds of ailing Parents languishing in Australia, unable to stay on any sort of "proper visa" but unable to leave because they are too ill or too frail to be able to make the long journey back to their home countries.

The advent of the powerful new computer has not helped with this - in the good old days they would have had to get the paper file back from Australia to London and so on, so the staff in London decided it was quicker and simpler just to put a new visa label into Mum's passport and permit her to do as she pleased.

I think it is much more difficult now although the new Minister for Immi does seem to be hugely sympathetic towards Parents, so things might improve again during his tenure.

Best wishes

Gill

[cabbagesahoy!]

Gill - That is tremendously helpful. Thank you.
How much would an investor visa investor need to invest - do you know?

Any other practical experience of this matter gratefully received.