scimum

Update just in case anyone else is in the same situation as us - all they asked for at the Medicare office was her passport and her birth certificate. So getting her added to our card was no problem.

Thanks lebourvellec, that's worth knowing.

Yes, having a medicare card satisfies the 8501 condition, but to get a medicare card you need proof of your visa. Hence the catch-22 in my thread title.

I'm going to try going into the Medicare office tomorrow and see if they will do it without proof of the visa. It seems easier than trying to go to DIAC and get the visa granted automatically. Someone on another forum said DIAC won't talk to you directly if you've appointed a migration agent anyway (which pisses me off more than a little).

I guess if we can't do it that way we might have to get insurance and then cancel it. That also pisses me off because the insurance they offer to 457 visa holders only covers the same things that we get from the reciprocal agreement anyway.

Moving to Melbourne - we are already in Australia!

Yes I've heard that she automatically gets the same visa as us too. In fact I found the relevant section of the immigration law.

Here it is:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/s78.html

So I suppose the visa should come first - but do I just walk into a DIAC office and ask them to do it, or will I have to fill in loads of forms like the guy is asking us to do?

We are all on 457s and I have a new baby born here. We have her British passport already. We are trying to get her 457 visa sorted out so she doesn't get refused entry to Australia when we come back from our holiday in the UK.

The immigration agent is asking for proof that she is on our private health insurance. We don't have private health insurance, we just use our Medicare cards.

But I haven't sorted out her Medicare cover yet - and I notice that to do that we have to have proof of her visa!

Someone else must have been in this situation before!! How can I sort out one without the other? Or do I just have to buy her (expensive, pointless) private healthcare insurance in order to get the visa?

Hi there

I looked into this last year. We are on 457 visas. My husband earns enough to have to pay the medicare levy surcharge. BUT when I tried to get family health insurance, all insurers said I couldn't get it because we were on 457s and only had the yellow (reciprocal) medicare card. The only insurance I could find was one that covered the same things as the reciprocal agreement, and would cost us about $5k pa. My husband doesn't earn enough to make this worthwhile getting just to avoid the surcharge!

We do have extras cover with HIF. They didn't seem to have any problem with us having a 457 visa.