Contributory aged parent visa

Hi

I've been trying to find out how to get my parents to Australia with me if we get granted the general skilled 136 visa. I think the only way is a contributory temporary aged parents visa, then onto a contributory aged parents residence visa.

I believe i would have to reside in Australia for 2 years in order to sponsor them?

Is there anyway around this?

I thought maybe get them a visitors visa and say that they were helpling us to migrate, so would they make it a 12 month visa & well then i get stuck there, would they be able to apply for an extension on their visitors visa, until i get my 'settlement period'.

If anyone has got any advice on keeping my parents with me, please let me know.

We are going to be sending our TRA off soon, once we have had it signed by a solicitor on Thursday.

:roll:

You seem to be pretty well researched about your parents' visa strategy, save only to say that if an Assurer can be found they might look at moving straight to a Contributory Parents visa rather than the two step (temporary => permanent) strategy.

Also, the Aged Parents visa can only be applied for when the applicant is onshore.

As to whether long stay tourist visas can be used to help them spend long periods in Australia while you are satisfying the sponsor's need to be "settled" - the DIMA is generally averse to providing what amounts to enduring and continuous long stays in Australia as the holder of a tourist visa.

Best regards.

PS. When parent applicants are outside Australia they would apply for the Contributory Parent visa. This visa requires the applicant to be outside Australia at the time of visa grant, unlike the Contributory Aged Parent category.

HI Tache

I agree with Alan Collett. Very briefly, my mother had to rely on tourist visas from 1992 until 2006 because nothing else was possible for her. She would not have been able to satisfy the Balance of Family test before 2003, when a Tribunal case confirmed that the way that a now-adult step-child is treated for the purposes of this Test was altered by a change in the legislation in 1999. I won't bore you with the details because they are not relevant to your own situation.

DIMA in London are very accommodating about tourist-visas for British Parents, we have found, provided that they are only being used as a temporary stepping-stone and not as an alternative to Parent Migration. Do not be seduced by my mother's own history with these visas, because there was a definite shift in Policy in 2004 and although we managed to wheedle another 6 months in Oz for Mum out of DIMA then, their stroppiness was the wake up call that made me re-investigate whether Parent migration would be possible for Mum after all. The Officer concerned actually did us a huge favour though we did not think so at the time and the probability is that he didn't realise it either! Unwittingly, he kicked my own ass into getting cracking on the situation instead of lying low and trying to ignore the whole issue.

I wear my heart on my sleeve with these visas. I have not got the time, the wish or the patience to try to sidle round DIMA by half-painting the picture. My experience is that they respond constructively to the truth and bend over backwards to help if they are shown that the story is true.

Let us assume that you get your 136 visa and decide to use it to move to Australia. Your Parents can satisfy the BoF test, so as long as they are in reasonable health too, Parent migration will become possible for them in due course. Why not just explaim that to DIMA when you apply fotr their subclass 676 tourist visas asking for up to 12 months at a time? All that they would be doing is marking time and I really don't think DIMA would have a problem with the idea.

Cheers

Gill[/b]

Hi Gill,

My sister got an email with a migration agent she has been using, they said that if they applied for a Tourist/visitor visa, then that is what their intentions should be, not for any other reason, they will not help anymore without drawing contracts up for my parents.

We are hoping to research it enough that they won't need to spend any other money, they will have to give up there house as it is to pay for the contibutory aged parents visas. It all gets a bit confusing when you've read about too many visa's and trying to sort out our own stuff aswell. Headaches are all a bit too often at the moment!!!!!!

Thanks for your advice.

By the way, did your mum get to stay in Oz on a tourist/visitors visa for more than 6 months at a time?

Hi Rache

We have never used a Migration Agent for any of Mum's visas. Tourist visas are very straghtforward and you can easily tackle those by yourselves. You need to have lived in Oz for two years before you will become eligible to sponsor your parents for a CP visa, so you'll have plenty of time to swot up on those and be able to handle the application yourselves.

Mum was over 70 by the time she started to spend most of each year in Australia. To start with she was allowed to spend a year at a time out in Oz, but as she got older they cut that to six months at a time, though the visas were valid for multiple entry. So she went to Oz for six months, then to Thailand for a couple of weeks, then back to Oz for another six months. After the second six months she came back to the UK and we started the process again. That worked fine until 2004, so we weren't really bothered about the fact that she was not eligible for Parent migration because of the BoF Test.

However, they did get stroppy with Mum in 2004 and the officer who rang her said she was abusing the system by using tourist visas to live in Autralia, in effect. She pleaded with him and he gave her another six months, but that visa was not valid for multiple entry so she had to come back to the UK after only 6 months. However, she was nearly 86 by then so her advanced age might have had a lot to do with their stroppinessl, because they worry about parents going to Ox on tourist visas and becoming too ill to leave.

Mum returned to the UK in July 2005 and I set about swotting up on the CP visa for her, established that she can now meet the BoF test and got her application ready. At the time, the POPC were saying that they were taking about 9 months to process CP applications. So I made simultaneous applications for the CP visa and also for another subclass 676 tourist visa for Mum. I sent a covering letter to London explaining about the CP application and asking them to let Mum have 8 unbroken months out in Oz, so that she could spend most of the processing period out there. Her passport came back with the new tourist visa in it a fortnight later and they gave her the 8 months I had asked for. I then rang the POPC and made sure that the main application had reached them safely. It had, so I put Mum on a plane to Perth that weekend. She came back to the UK 5 weeks before her CP visa was granted and she flew back to Oz two days ago, to activate her new CP visa. That is the final step in the process so she can now come and go from Oz whenever she pleases and not becaus yet another tourist visa is about to expire, or she can remain in Oz for as long as she likes if she prefers.

I think that the best way for your parents would be to apply for ubclass 878 tourist visas using the paper & post vesrion. That will enable them to send a covering letter with the application, explaining about you and that they are thinking of migrating as Contributory Parents as soon as you are eligible to sponsor them. Meanwhile they want to have a good look at Oz to enable them to decide whether they could be happy there themselves. DIMA might well let them stay for a year. They gace a friend of mine's 69 uear old Mum a year a few weels ago, even though she only requested 6 months.

At the end of the first visa your parents should return to the UK, to prove that they still have ties here. Give it a couple of months and then apply for another 676 tourist visa, explaining that they are gearing up to make an application for a CP visa as soon as you can sponsor them. Then when they appy for the CP visa (which they will almost certainly have to do from offshore) they will be able to ask for a year on their third 676 visa with no difficulty, I suspect. Friends of mine have recently gone to Melbourne for a year whilst they wait for their own CP visa to be processed and some other applicants whom I am in touch with left for Oz for a few days ago. Both couples plan to go to Auckland or Fiji once their COs are ready to grant their CP visas.

As long as your parents are in reasonably good health when they make their applications for CP visas, I really can't see any difficulty here.

I think it is VER confusing to try to get your head round 3 different visas at once and I admire you for trying to. I think that for the moment, you should focus on your own application. Get tourist visas for Mum & Dad once your own visa has been granted and you are ready to move to Oz. Then you'll have another two years in which to get your heads round the details of the CP 143 and 173 visas.

I suspect that you will have to choose one of those two. DIMA is likely to impose Condition 8503 on the tourist visas in order to prevent your parents from being able to apply for Contributory Aged Parent visas from onshore, Mum's CP application had to be made from offshore for this reason.

Vheers

Gill

We had a rather confusing situation with our last visas, as we were granted 4 year visas, although we hadn't asked for them. We didn't even know there was such a thing. However, our last two visits to Oz were 3 years apart and on the same visas. I am just about to apply for new visas for our impending trip next March.........I wonder what we will be given this time ?

Eric.

Hi Eric

You are describing the subclass 686 visa which was discontinued on 1 July 2005. The subclass 676 is now the only long-stay tourist visa for Oz.

They seem to be happy to allow Contributory Parent applicants from the UK to spend 12 moths in Oz during the processing wait. I think they would have given even Mum 12 months if I had asked for that.

How long are you thinking of going to Oz for, and do you intend to apply for the e-878? If you do, I'd be interested in fedback on how the application process with it works, because a friend of mine wants to have a go with it for her parents, though she is in Oz and I have been talking with her sister in the UK this evening. Both of us think that they should play safe and use the paper & post version because some people say that they have had great difficulty uploading documents into the e-system, plus my friend's Mum is 71 and has a medical problem which might worry DIMA when her doctor discloses it on the meds certificate that the over 70s have to produce.

Neither the sister or I have a clue how to work a scanner. I gather that the problem is that the DIMA computer will not acept uploads that are more than 1mb in size. The scanner's default is to turn the document into a jpeg, making for a large file, when what people ought to do is get Adobe Writer and turn them into pdf files, I gather. Which is all far too technical for me. If I need anything elaborate done with the computer at work, I wheedle the IT guys into doing it for me!

If you decide to go for the e-visa, I'd be very interested to hear how easy or dificult the computer end of things is with it.

Cheers

Gill

Thanks guys for all your help, i think maybe my parents come out to Oz with me for as long as the visa states and then when i get my 'settlement' period over with, they can apply for the Aged Parenets Contributory visa.

One last question - or at least i think so :idea:

When they have to give the 2nd visa installment (the big one) does this mean that the visa has already been approved, or can they still loose the $30,000?

Rache

Hi Rache

Not quite. Please just forget the idea of the Contributory Aged Parent visa, even if your parents are or would be old enough for it. They will almost certainly not be able to apply for the Aged (onshore) version of this visa but they will definitely be able to apply for the offshore version, which is the Contributory Parent visa.

The only downside with the Contributory Parent visa is that the Parent must be outside Australia when the application is launched, and outside Australia when it is granted and evidenced. However, they can launch the application from offshore and then go to Australia on a 12 month tourist visa during the wait. All they have to do then is go offshore again before the CP visa is granted.

To answer your second question, we specifically asked DIMA what would happen if we lodged the bond and paid the 2nd VAC, but then Mum popped her clogs before the visa could be validated. They wouldn't be shelling out for healthcare for a deceased, nor would they be vulnerable to any social security claims from the corpse. They confirmed that if this dire event happened, they would release the Bond and refund the 2nd VAC.

Now that Mum's visa has been validated, we have told her that she'll have to carry on living for at least another 20 years so that she and we can get our money's worth out of this visa!

Cheers

Gill

Thanks Gill, for your advice, i did mean for my parents to apply in UK after they have visited Oz for as long as there visa states.

I am just a bit scatty at the moment.

We are ready to send off our TRA at the weekend, so hopefully in a month or two, we should be a quarter way there!!!!

Rache76

Hi Tache

No worries. I think the title of the CP visa is very confuring. My Mum is in her 80s, so she is definitely Aged. I got the impression that that was the one she must apply for, therefore. However, it said you have to be in Oz at the time of the application. Which was fine, except that it also said you can't apply from within Oz if Condition 8503 was on your last visa for Oz, which it was.

I spent HOURS faffing about thinking, "I cannot cope with this GIBBERISH. First this rubbish says she has to be in Oz to apply for this thing. Then it says that she can't apply from there because of this 8503 thing. Then it says,"You may be eligible for a Bridging Visa A." What the hell is a Bridging Visa A or any other letter?" I spent four solid hours one night swotting up about these bluddy Bridging Visas, only to conclude at the end of it that Mum was not eligible for one and the whole evening had been a complete waste of time.

It would have been far easier to call one the Contributory Offshore Parent and the other one the Contributory Onshore Parent, I reckon.

Good luck with your TRA, honey.

Cheers

Gill

That is a very good idea, Gill (the naming of visa categories, that is, to help ease general confusion).

I shall take this up at a suitable level ...

Best wishes.

Oh, my dear Alan!

You do not want to get me started on the subject of the quality of the Parliamentary draftsmanship in Australia, my friend!

When I started investigating the CP visa for Mum a little over a year ago, the Oz House website assured me airily that the DIMA website is, "Designed to facilitate self-assessment." I see that they have since withdrawn this extravagant claim.

It is definitely designed to facilitate beating one's brains to a pulp, so I assume that this facility has been provided for the purpose of self-assessing one's capacity for masochism.

Gill. [/b]

On this topic...

an assurance of support must be made. They measure your taxable income and it must reach a certain level.

Now, due to some perfectly legal government endorsed strategic tax management, my taxable income has fallen below this threshold.

Even though my income is well over the required level, Centrelink have knocked back my assurance on account of the level of taxable income and flatly refused to take associated documentation into account.

Has anyone faced this issue? Where did you go for a sensible answer from the department?

Cheers,

lucky horse

I am afraid the matter is almost certainly non negotiable.

I recommend your efforts will be best spent trying to find another Assurer, rather than trying to argue the matter with Centrelink.

Best regards.

On this topic...

 

an assurance of support must be made. They measure your taxable income and it must reach a certain level.

 

Now, due to some perfectly legal government endorsed strategic tax management, my taxable income has fallen below this threshold.

 

Even though my income is well over the required level, Centrelink have knocked back my assurance on account of the level of taxable income and flatly refused to take associated documentation into account.

 

Has anyone faced this issue? Where did you go for a sensible answer from the department?

 

Cheers,

 

lucky horse

many thanks for the response, Alan.

Cripes :shock:

Another assurer would mean my partner can't sponsor his parents at any time in the next ten years.

the plan so far is to...

have an accountant prepare documentation to demonstrate the taxable income before and after dedcutions.

Reduce salary sacrificing level of deductions for next three months to be able to provide payslips at correct level of taxable income as evidence

Speak to an authorised review officer at centrelink

Write to the CO for an extension

as an aside I will also write to Kevin Andrews and Ian Campbell to advise of a system in place that discriminates against those who take the time to manage their finances, and government employees entitled to tax benefits (amongst them actively serving defence force staff).

Two questions if I may...

If my parents have a taxable income can they not assure themselves?

or

Can my parents sponsor and assure anyone else once they are PR?

Best regards,

Lou.

Hello Lou

I absolutely echo what Alan Collett has said. He is absolutely right and your best bet is to listen to him, lass.

I have a reason for replying to you publicly instead of in a PM. The reason is because I hope that Alan Collett will read this reply and chip in about whether it is possible to re-jig your tax-position for a long enough period. He is an accountant, so he understands what is possible with tax-arrangements, which I don't. To make it easy for him to find the right bit, I will put the relevant paraagraph in italics to make it stand out.

I realise that your reply to Alan is nothing more than a rather panicky knee-jerk reaction to alarming news from him. I understand that completely and I'd be in a similar panic myself. However, if you can just stay calm, we can have a realistic bash at sorting this mess out. Your ideas so far are not realistic and they are potential boomerangs. They are far too likely to miss their targets and to come back and hit you. :oops:

It is obvious from your questions that what has happened is that you did not research the AoS side of things carefully enough and that you do not understand it properly yet. Therefore please read these articles by Alan Collett because it is essential that you start from the right place.

http://www.gomatilda.com/news/article.cfm?articleid=391

http://www.gomatilda.com/news/article.cfm?articleid=214

In answer to two questions you have posed:

1. No, your parents cannot be self-assuring. That is definite.

2. 1. Your parents will be able to *sponsor* other people for migration after they have lived in Oz for not less than two years.

2.2 I am 99.9% sure that they would not be able to *Assure* anyone else until their own 10 year AoS has expired and they have made no recoverable claims on Centrelink during that time.

Sponsoring someone and Assuring them are two completely different ideas, even though the same person might undertake both roles. But the roles themselves carry completely different obligations from each other.

Lou, I think you are on completely the wrong track in the rest of your response to Alan, and that to try to do any of the things you are discussing would simply create even more of a mess than the one you are already in.

I am serious about boomerangs. The DIAC website provides the necessary link to the Centrelink website and recommends reading it. The Centrelink website recommends that prospective Assurers should ring them in order to get one-to-one advice. What inspired you to ignore both recommendations?

If you start trying to throw your weight around in the manner which you are suggesting, you will simply make a fool of yourself and you will also exasperate everyone whilst doing nothing constructive by way of sorting the mess out.

Your idea about a salary-scheme for the next three months does not work. Three months at the last minute does not satisfy the necessary test. To get this notion to work, you would have to re-jig your finances right back to 1 July 2004 AND get the ATO to issue new TANs for 2004/5 & 2005/6 after all that has been done. I don't know whether it would even be possible to do what would need to be done but even if it is, I imagine it would take until Doomsday to do and Centrelink will not wait indefinitely for you to sort this mess out.

If you get up Centrelink's nose then they could simply give up on you and inform DIAC that the requirements for the AoS have not been met on behalf of your parents. That would give DIAC the authority to refuse the visa so you absolutely do not want to go anywhere near this path - let alone down it - I firmly suggest. I doubt whether it is possible to get a decision by Centrelink Reviewed until they have made one - which they haven't as yet. Don't tempt them to jump the gun via irritating the managers with none-too-sensible demands. At the moment, Centrelink's staff are on-side and trying to help you so let us keep it that way, I recommend.

Now, let us get on to considering ideas that might solve the problem instead of sabre-rattling, shall we?

You have assumed (correctly) that your Partner's family's position must also be protected at all costs, therefore he cannot join with you in Assuring your Parents. Neither can your Parents stroll into Australia and immediately Assure his parents, so that notion is a non-starter too.

What about friends and colleagues of yours? I know another couple who were in a similar mess but it looks as if there has been a breakthrough in the last 48 hours or so. On his own, their only child is in the same situation as you - not enough net asessable income to satisfy Centrelink. However, a friend of the child has stepped into the breech and has offered to help out, so it looks as though that situation might have a happy outcome despite having been very worrying for some weeks.

Corporations can provide AoSs. Please see here, but please bear in mind that the figures in the Social Security Guide are hopelessly out of date. Use Alan Collett's figures instead.

http://www.facs.gov.au/guides_acts/ssg/ssguide-9/ssguide-9.4/ssguide-9.4.3/ssguide-9.4.3.90.html

Unincorporated bodies can do so as well. Please see here:

http://www.facs.gov.au/guides_acts/ssg/ssguide-9/ssguide-9.4/ssguide-9.4.3/ssguide-9.4.3.100.html

Although there are limits on the number of people an individual can Assure at any one time, there are no such restrictions on corporations and other bodies.

How good is your relationship with your employer and/or could you or any of your friends provide your parents' AoS through a company, either alone or jointly with you?

I really do suggest that you confine yourself to the avenues I have suggested and leave boomerang-throwing for another occasion, chooks.

And if there really, really turns out to be No Other Way then there are organisations in Australia that are willing to provide Assurances of Support in return for a fee. I don't personally know anyone who does this, but I do have some names and contact details. (And I know an Australian businessman who might consider it a lucrative sideline for his own company, come to think of it, not that he has ever been involved with this game hitherto.)

However, it is WAY too soon to be thinking of options like that because none of the other potentially do-able options have been tried yet.

Right. I think I have bored you and everyone else enough for one evening, so I will now shut up!

Best wishes

Gill

Gill has posted a detailed reply, so I'm not sure what more I can usefully add ... thanks Gill!

Best regards.

Gill has posted a detailed reply, so I'm not sure what more I can usefully add ... thanks Gill!

 

Best regards.

Hi Alan

What about the tax-thing? Is it possible for Lou to rearrange her entire tax-affairs so as to get her net assessable income up enough for a long enough period and then get the ATO to issue amended YANs for the relevant years?

If it is not even possible to do it, though, there is no point in wondering how long it might take to do.

Meanwhile, is it possible that, via the MIA, you could try to coax DIAC into offering more about the AoS on their own website? After all, Centrelink is the dole office so the AoS is only a very tiny proportion of what they do. You have to fish around in the Centrelink site to find the AoS stuff at all. Then when you do find it, probably half the people in Australia have never heard of the benefits they burble about and people outside Australia, like me, have never heard of any of them.

The cumulative effect is to make the whole thing FAR more difficult than it needs to be because the visa-applicants need to understand the Centrelink stuff, not just the Assurers. The Centrelink website looks inwards into Australia. The DIAC website is supposed to be the interface with the wannabe applicants outside Australia.

This is the THIRD instance I've seen of a CPV AoS going wrong and people posting worried threads about them on the forums in the last 2 months. Three different families are involved.

I'm wearing grooves in cyber-space with the links to your articles about this wretched topic, trying to help people. I'll be demanding that DIAC put me on the payroll in a minute, because providing the info in those articles should be their job, not mine!

Cheers

Gill

Gill,

It is indeed possible for details of additional income for previous tax years to be advised to the ATO - or for deductions claimed to be "unclaimed". This would though most probably trigger additional tax liabilities and interest charges on late paid tax.

If the Assurer is agreeable to this - and the amendments are sustainable in the event of a challenge by the ATO - then yes, it would be worthwhile seeing an accountant to have tax years for previous tax years amended.

Insofar as having additional information made available to Assurers is concerned, I raised this with the MIA last July time when the changes to the income threshold were announced. With all due respect to the MIA, I was asked by them to be a spokesperson for discussions with the Department of Immigration and to expect to receive details from the MIA as to who I might liaise with. I heard nothing subsequently.

I will nevertheless raise this issue with the CEO of the MIA, with whom I have a fairly direct line - I spoke with him on the telephone only two days ago on a different issue.

Best regards.

Many thanks for your replies both Gill and Alan.

We didn't realise it was possible to alter tax advice after the fact and that is the route we are pursuing at the moment.

We have contacted the CO to request an extension, and are seeing a tax accountant to amend the 2005/06 return.

Hi Lou

Check with Centrelink but I suspect that it will not be enough to amend the return just for 2005/6. I suspect 2004/5 would need to be amended as well.

Cheers

Gill

hi guys

Thanks so far for your input. It all seems to be resolved now, fingers crossed. My 2004/5 taxable income was well over the threshold as this was prior to any salary sacrificing, and Centrelink agreed I appeared to be on target for 2006/7, so no problem there. I was only short on 2005/6...and by such a tiny amount it wasn't even funny. (I have spent more on lipstick in the last year than this sum)

Anyway, I gave my accountant a bell yesterday and he said 'No problem!' I whizzed round there.He unclaimed one of my deductions, resubmitted the return and hey presto tells me that I'll find a new amended blue TAN in my post box in approximately 14 days.

Would I be correct in thinking there's no law against paying too much tax?

I'm not counting any chickens yet, but I hope this works out. And thanks chaps for the advice. Its been most helpful.

By the way both myself and my partner are communicating under the sign-in name of lucky horse/Lou. he's the hot-headed one :lol:

The Real Lucky Horse

Hi Both

I was just about to go to bed when I decided to check my e-mails and got the notification of your new reply.

It sounds completely sorted to me.

The next step is to keep an eye on Centrelink, I suggest. Their efficiency seems to vary from place to place. I'm in the UK, my sister Elaine is in Perth and Mum was in the UK with me at the time of the Centrelink stuff and the run-up to the grant of her visa, having returned from Oz a month before her CP visa was granted.

Elaine went to the Centrelink interview on a Thursday and they agreed that the figures were OK. In some places, they print, sign and hand over the letter for the Bank on the spot but at the main Centrelink office in Perth they said they would write to Elaine,

We gave them till Tuesday and then we both chased them. They said they had written to Elaine the day before, authorising her to deposit the Bond. Come that Friday, this letter - which only had to go about 25kms - had not arrived.

Elaine went back to Centrelink, told them that the letter hadn't arrived but that she was on her way to the bank to deal with the Bond, so could she please have a copy of the letter that was in the post. The Bank accepted the copy so all was well there. Elaine got the receipts from the Bank before she left (don't put up with, "We will post them" from the Bank.) She took the receipts back to Centrelink but only got there just before they closed for the weekend.

Elaine also sent the money for the 2nd instalment by registered post on that Friday. The POPC got that on the Monday. There is actually no real need to footle about with waiting for the CO to write and ask for the money etc etc.

On the next Wednesday, Elaine chased Centrelink again to find out whether they had sent the OK to DIAC. The girl supposed that they must have done, since her computer confirmed that Centrelink weere satisfied. Well - we weren't because the promised letter from them had still not arrived over a week after it has been posted.

I agreed with Elaine that as it was Wednesday evening in Perth by the time she & I spoke but only lunchtime in the UK, I would give Centrelink a bit more slumber and then I would hit them bright & early on Thursday morning their time. I got confirmation that they had sent the OK to DIAC but it was not going to reach the POPC till Friday.

Seemingly, Centrelink do some kind of data-transfer to the DIAC computer by way of the OK. Nothing to simple as an e-mail to a CO whose own office is probably in the same street! This data-transfer thing is uploaded to the DIAC mainframe - in Canberra. This contraption only does data uploads and downloads during the night, it appears.

So - Centrelink in Perth do the bit with the data on Wednesday. It gets transmitted to Canberra that night. The following night, the thing in Canberra sends this data to its own sub-contraption back in Perth. God knows whether the Centrelink mainframe works in a similar fashion.

I waited till Friday in Perth and e-mailed the CO since Elaine was out all that day. She was a darling. She replied within a couple of hours confirming that she had received the OK and had granted the visa.

However, the promised letter authorising Elaine to deposit the Bond did not drop into Elaine's letter-box till the Thursday AFTER Mum's visa had been granted. Even more curiously in a conversation when the posted letter finally reached Elaine, Elaine told me, "They say they have written to me confirming that they have sent the OK to the POPC. But that letter is coming from Queensland, so God knows when it will arrive."

Why on EARTH are Centrelink in Perth writing letters that get posted in Queensland? If you ring them about an AoS you start off with a call centre in Tasmania where they have not got a clue so you persist and get transferred to their Manager - in Sydney. Who transfers the call to Perth - the people I wanted to collar in the first place. Meanwhile the letters get posted from Queensland! "Where is your AoS?" "All over Australia," apparently.

It is the most bizarre system I've ever encountered and on the forums, time and again I have watched people waiting week upon week for these wretched letters to wend their way around, with the Assurers posting receipts back to Centrelink instead of marching in with them and standing over the staff.

I don't know about you but by the time we got to the final bits of the jig-saw Elaine and I were so fed up with the whole process that we were simply not prepared to let it drag on for any longer than was absolutely unavoidable.

It costs A$150 to open the Bond account by the way and it pays interest every six months. I don't kow the rate yet because our Bond was deposited on 8 September 2006 so we won't get the first lot of interest just yet. I don't know whether you can have the interest added on to the capital or whether it has to be paid out.

Hope this is of some value, though. Please keep in touch and let me know how it goes, won't you?

Cheers

Gill