Perez

My absolute favourite has to be "she'll be right mate!"

Hi, We are moving to London next year and are planning to take a long holiday in South America (6 months) after leaving Aus. We are wanting to ship back personal effects (clothes, kitchen stuff, laptop, documents etc). We will need to have our stuff stored prior to being shipped - ideally we'd be able to time it so our stuff gets to the UK around the same time as us. Can anyone recommend a service that they have used? I was looking at services like Seven Seas (15 boxes - roughly $2k inc 15 weeks storage). Thanks in advance, appreciate any suggestions.

Not mandatory but if you want to leave Australia and come back then you'll need to travel on an Australian passport. I read on the DIAC site that when you get citizenship, your PR visa on your original passport expires - therefore no right to return on that document. For details about passport applications, see this site - https://www.passports.gov.au/web/forms/entrypoint.aspx

Citizenship ceremony was yesterday, a nice feeling to have that certificate in hand! Now we just need to apply for our Aussie passports! Good luck all, hope you get yours sorted soon!

Here's my timeline so far: Date applied - 04/03/14 City/Council area - Port Phillip Online / Paper - Online Date received the acknowledgement email - 04/03/14 Date of the Citizenship Test - 19/03/14 Date of ceremony - 28/04/14! Type of ceremony (Urgent/Normal) - Normal

I would suggest using photoshop or another image editor such as GIMP, Paint.net... capture each page and save as a separate JPEG.. upload as required. This worked for me although was a bit fiddly. Bit of a painful process and not one for the technophobe! With regard to certification, online docs don't need to be certified, but postal ones do. Conflicting information exists on the DIAC site, but I confirmed this with them by telephone. So I uploaded all documents as JPEG, none were certified and I was fine. I took the originals to the appointment and they checked them. Good luck!

Wow, 30 years is a lot! I guess the only thing you can do is give it your best with whatever information/records you have. When I applied for PR it was 10 years. I was able to get around the last 9 years by searching for booking references in my gmail account - i.e. seraching for anything from airlines such as Easyjet, Ryanair, any holiday companies I could remember, along with any stamps in my passport. Managed to pretty much sort it, but it was a pain to obtain all that information! With regard to visits to Europe where there are no stamps, I doubt they have any visibility of such trips, so if you miss a few I'm fairly certain there will be no comeback.

My wife had her appointment yesterday and online it's showing as approved, so we just need to wait for a date. My council is Port Phillip. The immigration officer said it's not one of their busier councils so hopefully it won't be too long. No rush really as long as it's in the pipeline.

Letter received today - application granted! It was dated last Weds (the same day as my Citizenship appointment). Didn't take them long! Just need to wait for a ceremony now!

Your best bet is to call DIAC and ask for advice. I'm sure this situation will have occurred before (and no doubt regularly with people applying under the same code as you!) I imagine if you answer to the best of your ability you will be ok. You might wish to include a letter with the P80, describing your situation.

Correct... a police check is only required if you have spent 12 months or more in a given country since being granted your permanent residency (as per http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applying/files/pid_docs/conferral_checklist/) - Good Character Documents section. The Aussie one, you have to complete a police checking form and submit as part of your application (or provide the details during your online application) - you don't need to apply for an Aus police clearance certificate like you might have had to when applying for PR.

Hi SKW... can I ask what local council you fall under?

I applied (online) last Tuesday, and received an email today with my citizenship interview/test appointment. Also based in Melbourne. My test is next Weds. Hope this helps!

Thanks. Submitted my application. I called DIAC and they advised to do as best as I could with regard to attaching the images. They said that if images couldn't be attached then certified documents would need to be sent to them by post. It was suggested that this could be done at the same time as the application, in order to reduce any delay caused by them having to ask for them. In the end (with a bit of fiddling with image qualities), I got all the pages under 500kb (and still readable). So now I just have to sit back and wait to get invited to an interview!

Hi all, I'm about to put in my citizenship application but am a little confused. Hoping someone has already gone through this successfully and will be able to offer some advice. With regard to attaching documents to the application (scanned forms such as the police checking one) as well as documents, the site guidance specifies that the files should be jpeg format and less than 500kb per file. In the case of multi page files (such as the police checking form), what needs to be done? At the moment we've scanned each page as an individual jpeg, and will upload individually making sure the page number is in the filename. Is this the way to do it? It's a bit weird that they won't take other formats such as pdf as this would make it much easier! Thanks in advance for any advice!

+1 for this... why do so many drivers here drive so dangerously - tailgating in particular is a big problem.

We just got our visa grant today. I put the application together myself, to save money. A colleague had done it himself, and gave me plenty of tips and let me look at his paperwork so I could get an idea how thorough to be. If your application should be fairly straightforward and you're not afraid to spend the time researching, drafting and redrafting, then I would recommend applying yourself. Just make sure you're as thorough as can be, and if you have any queries you can always call DIAC's information line for advice. Don't underestimate how much time it will take you, the form filling took me every weekday evening for 5 days, and that's not including the amount of time I spent getting the required information together! If you have any doubts at all or your case is complicated (e.g. health issues, any sort of criminal history etc) then it would probably pay dividends to consult a professional.

Hey Sophie, For the first week after arriving in Melbourne, we rented a private room from a hostel type place in South Yarra. Then we worked hard to find a rental to move into after that, and luckily were able to find one pretty quickly. You probably won't be able to rent somewhere without viewing as that was the general reply I got when asking for information before we moved - a lot of letting agencies won't let you apply unless you've viewed the place. With regard to visa in passport - with a lot of visas now they are electronic so no need to have them in your passport unless you specifically request them to do so. I think you should be fine if you take visa grant letter with you when arriving, in case of any queries. With regard to employers, they can check your eligibility to work on an on online system called VEVO, so again no need to have visa in your passport. All the best and good luck for your move! Barry

Hi all, I'm looking at the forms required for PR (already here on a 457). It doesn't look like the form 80 is mandatory, and I have read a few articles by people who have and haven't submitted with their initial application. So... who didn't submit up-front? If so, did you get asked for it? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the information! I called my previous employer, the only company reference they are able to provide include start/end dates and position held. They are sending this to me, so hopefully this will be enough. I can probably also get hold of the Job Description for my role there + a copy of my employment contract showing the number of hours per week, so this should cover any requirements.

Hi all, I'm in the midst of getting all paperwork together for my PR application. With regard to references, I already have one for my employment in the UK, however I haven't got one yet from my previous Australian employer (before my current sponsor). I can contact the HR department tomorrow and I'm sure I'll get a bog standard letter of reference (assume Aus is the same as the UK in that respect) - is this sufficient? I was hoping to get my previous manager to provide it but he's on leave and not sure when he's back at work. Would appreciate any advice regarding this, if anyone's already been down the same path. Thanks in advance!

Hi, Can anyone recommend a PAYG sim for use in the UK please? We're going back for a holiday in a couple of weeks and I'll be taking my iphone. Will be using a combination of calls and data, so something that's reasonable for both would be great. Thanks in advance!

Sounds like there are few Port Melbourne types on here then! We've been here for about 6 months now.. really enjoying it here. I walk to work in the city, which is a big plus. Also nice being walking distance from the beach in summer / for walks in winter. Cheers, Barry

Hi all, Thanks for the detailed replies. I was lucky, my transfer came through the Monday after I finished work at my old place, and I started on Tuesday. I was prepared for up to 3 weeks off as worst case scenario. All the best, and good luck to anyone still waiting! Cheers, Barry

Hi, Has anyone been through the experience of transferring employers? I already have a 457 Visa. An application is due to be lodged today by my new employer, however the migration agent told me that 457 processing times for VIC are currently 4-6 weeks. I'm wondering if they are quoting conservatively as my original visa grant only took a week (I was already here on a WHM visa). I would hope the transfer to a new employer is a simpler affair than an entire new visa due to it only involving a nomination. I am due to leave my current role in just over 3 weeks, so the implication of the visa taking longer is that I won't be able to work for up to 3 weeks... Fingers crossed it comes through quickly! Any thoughts/experiences much appreciated. Cheers, Barry