Hello Londonderry
Welcome to Poms in Oz.
Have you thought about visas as yet? My only comment is this: the DIAC website and/or an Agent can only tell you about the visa requirements as they are today.
I've only been watching Aussie visas for 3 years, which is not long enough to get a good feel for how often they shuffle the cards with them, but they do seem to have done a surprising amount of card-shuffling in the last 3 years and are still at it now (though the change of Government in late 2007 was always bound to produce a fair amount of new legislation & new policies, including with Immigration.)
So query: would it be prudent to start the ball rolling on a visa application fairly soon, whilst you know what the current requirements would be, or do you take a chance on legislative changes that could happen before you are ready to apply and/or move? I don't have an answer or an opinion for you. I am merely wondering whether you have considered the question?
Most visas that confer Permanent Residency in Australia from Day One have to be validated by the act of Initial Entry to Oz within 12 months of the
earlier of the dates of the police checks or the medicals, because each of those only have a 12 month shelf-life. A short rekky visit to Oz takes care of validating the visas but the whole family must validate their visas. It is not enough for the main visa holder alone to do so.
Once the visas are validated, you then have up to 5 years
from the date of the grant of the visa in which to make the permanent move to Australia. However, with that idea - ie the possibility of waiting before making the permanent move - you have to consider the rules for Resident Return visas because the travel element of a
PR visa is only valid for 5 years from the date of the grant:
Five Year Resident Return Visa (Subclass 155)
I think it can be quite a tricky conundrum. Also I am not sure how many of the Investor type/group of visas grant
PR from Day One anyway? If you would be Provisional Residents to start with, as far as I know none of the above kicks in until your
PR visas are granted.
Just thought I would bring the query to your attention to make sure that you are aware of the considerations that may be involved.
Best wishes
Gill
