InnerVoice

Many thanks for this additional info. We like to travel when we have the chance so my wife renewed her RRV in July, and this time they gave her 5 years as she'd already been back here two years. Thank you for pointing out that once citizenship has been granted the RRV will be cancelled - hopefully it doesn't take too long for the passport application. I became a citizen nearly 20 years ago, so I can't really remember how long any of this took!

Thanks again, Ken. So was your interview/test in the local council offices? Just one last question - once a citizenship application has been approved, is there any restriction on overseas travel before the ceremony takes place?

Hi @Ken, thank you very much for the clarification. We were surprised as we had the 4-year figure in our heads, and thought it would be January 2024 before we could apply. That said, it seems to be about 18 months from applying to the citizen ceremony, so there's still a long road ahead. As a matter of curiosity, where does the Citizenship take place and what did they ask you at the interview?

Thanks - we will try this in January, once the 3 years has been completed. I just checked back and it was actually the autumn of 2014 that my wife was granted PR, but then she applied for a RRV in 2019, before the original 5 years was up. She then returned to Australia on the RRV. Would this qualify as holding a valid visa then?

I tried searching the forum but couldn't find an exact answer, so I'm just looking for clarification. My wife got her PR in 2015, then we went back to the UK for a few years (family reasons) before returning to Oz in January 2020. We haven't been overseas since then, so by my reckoning my wife will be eligible to apply for Australian citizenship this coming January, after being here 3 years. The residence requirement states that you have to be lawfully residing in Australia for 4 years with a maximum of 12 months absence allowed, so I assume if the 12 months absence is at the start of the 4 years then that's still okay? I've used the residence calculator on the Dept of Home Affairs website but found it a bit confusing. They ask you to enter the 'Lawful residence date', which I assume would be when my wife arrived here on her Partner 309 visa, so that would actually be before the 'Permanent residence date'. Many thanks in advance to anyone who can put me straight!

My wife has a partner visa (subclass 100), which is connected to her Thailand passport. She also has UK citizenship, which she obtained after being granted her Australian PR. Before we returned to Australia, she updated her new Thai passport details online with immigration, which was quite straightforward. We are now wondering if it's possible to 'transfer' her partner visa over to her UK passport, without complications? Once borders reopen we'd like to travel overseas, and it will be a lot simpler (obtaining visas etc) if she can just use her British passport for everything. Many thanks in advance.

Yes, it's harder doing it alone (as I can testify), but anything that is worthwhile is usually hard. Isn't that something we'd say when the students start complaining?! I'm a maths teacher in Cairns. Some things could be better, but the pluses far outweigh the minuses when compared to teaching in the UK. You'll probably be on 50% more money, for a start! I've worked in NSW and QLD, but have heard from teachers in VIC and SA that it's a tough gig down south - especially in SA. Getting a permanent position can be very hard. On the plus side there is plenty of work for science teachers in QLD and the weather is much nicer up here too :-) Maybe too hot for you if you are from Glasgow though? lol! :-o I know it sounds like a cliche, but generally we regret the things we don't do in life more than the things we do, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and go for it! It sounds like this could be just the fresh start you need and who'd want to be in grotty Glasgow when you could be starting a new life down here in paradise. Good luck and stay positive! Martin.

Dear All, Firstly a big thank you to all those of you on the forum who offered me invaluable advice about a year ago, when I was working out the best way to put together an application for a Partner Visa for my girlfriend (now wife). Without your help and the information I found on this site, I’m sure the process would have been far more problematic and possibly without the positive outcome. I’m a British/Australian citizen who had been living/working in Thailand for a few years and decided it was time to return to Australia permanently. I had a Thai girlfriend and wanted to bring her with me, but was completely unaware of the minefield the immigration process would be for her. We had a long-standing relationship, but it was quite hard to prove because we didn’t have any of the legal stuff in Thailand, such as a joint mortgage, shared bank accounts, bills etc. Fortunately, what we did have was plenty of photos, emails and experiences that we’d shared over the 4 years we had known each other. Luckily I had a job to come back to in Australia, so initially my girlfriend joined me on a tourist visa, which seemed like the easiest thing to do. Showing my naivety again at the time, I didn’t realize she would need to return to Thailand to submit the application for her visa, as it wasn’t possible to do it here whilst she was staying on a tourist visa. This restriction did seem somewhat draconian at the time, but I now appreciate that there are reasons why it’s in place. Our dilemma was whether to apply for the Partner Visa or the Prospective Marriage (Fiancé) Visa. Technically-speaking we had no legal evidence that we had lived together for 12 months or more, so applying for the Partner Visa without being married wasn’t an option. However, the Prospective Marriage Visa requires the applicant to accrue a lot more information and the process also costs an additional $1000. In the end we did the romantic thing and got married, so we were eligible to apply for the Partner visa. We didn’t just get married for that reason, I might add! :-) I couldn’t afford to pay a migration agent to handle the application, so I did it myself. The forms are long, laborious and somewhat ambiguous at times. One offered to look over my application and he said that there was no way we would get the visa, as we didn’t have enough evidence of a genuine relationship. He showed me some examples of applications which certainly had more evidence than ours, but we pretty much had collected everything we could. He said that DIAC would make the assumption that our relationship wasn’t genuine and we would have to find more evidence to prove otherwise, especially as my new wife was from Thailand and applications from there were viewed with skepticism – 80% of them being refused. He was very nice about it all; a classic soft-sell scenario in hindsight! This was definitely the low point, as my beloved was heading back and a decision had to be made. In the end we didn’t really have much choice in the matter because I didn’t have $5-6000 to pay for a migration agent on top of the $2060 application fee, so I bit the bullet and my wife returned to Bangkok where she submitted the application (along with a police check and medical, which had to be obtained there). Two weeks later she returned to Australia on a second tourist tourist visa and we spent another 3 months together, before she returned to Thailand again to await the outcome of the application. It said on the DIAC website it could take up to a year to process so we were both expecting a long wait, but in fact a decision was made just over 6 months after the application was sumitted. I should point out that her application was probably simpler than most in that it didn’t include any dependents. We fully expected there to be an interview at the immigration office in Bangkok, as everything I’d read and those who I had spoken to said it was an essential part of the application process, but at the beginning of March my wife received an email to say that her visa had been granted and had already been issued electronically. We were both very surprised and over the moon of course! Two weeks later she flew to Australia and we were together in time for the Easter holidays, which neither of us expected :-) I appreciate that our situation is just one case and are our circumstances are quite specific, but I hope it will lift the spirits of all those who are currently in the same situation as we were, awaiting the outcome of a Partner Visa application. I would like to finish by making the following points, which I think are true whatever your circumstances. If your circumstances are straightforward and you feel confident about doing the paperwork, don’t be afraid to submit the application forms yourselves – it will probably save you thousands. If you are unsure about certain aspects of the process, seek the advice of a migration agent, but don’t let them make you believe you need them to get your visa. They don’t have any special privileges to get your visa granted – only more experiences and resources to complete the paperwork in a shorter time. Submit as much relevant evidence as you can that will prove your relationship is genuine. If you are like us and didn’t have much evidence to legally bind you together, then make reciprocating wills to each other and send copies. Choosing to leave all your worldly goods to someone in the event of your death will always be viewed as a serious commitment! Without pestering the hell out them, stay in regular communication with your case officer about the progress of your application – we found ours to be very helpful and always got back within a couple of days. After all, you have paid $2060 for a service, not just a visa. Stay optimistic! Remember that no news is good news and there is no reason to believe that your case won’t be treated fairly, despite what you may have heard or read elsewhere. Finally, good luck and all the best to everyone! Martin.

Thanks to all for your contributions, although as no one seems to know for sure, I've assumed it to be 90 days, just to be on the safe side. Booked her flights to arrive on the 30th Aug and return on the 27th November. I suppose if I find out later that 3 calendar moths is allowed, then I might be able to amend the return flight and make it a couple of days later, but either way it's not a really big deal. Many thanks again! Martin.

Sorry if this sounds like a really daft question, but I can't get a straightforward answer from the information on the DIAC website. My wife has just been granted a 3-month tourist visa to join me here in Cairns whilst her spouse visa is being processed. I am about to book her flights, but I'm not sure if the tourist visa is valid for 3 months (i.e. nth August to nth November) or 90 days (as stated on some websites). If it is 90 days, would Day 1 be the date of arrival and Day 90 be the absolute last day she could be here? I'm a bit surprised that this isn't made clearer on the DIAC website, as 90 days is evidently not the same as 3 months. It goes without saying that having just paid $2060 for the spouse visa application, we do not want to jeopardise that by her staying even one day over. Many thanks for any helpful answers in advance! Kind regards, Martin.

Hi, and many thanks for your reply. I went to see a migration agent a month ago and they said that the Partner Visa application needed to be submitted offshore because my wife has the 8503 'no further stay' condition applied to her tourist visa. I was informed that any person who has a visa with that condition cannot apply for a 'substantative' visa (one which leads to residency status), whilst they are currently in Australia. Yes, it would be very convenient if she didn't have to go back to Thailand to lodge the application. If you know of a way around it, then please let me know!

Why would that be? Many thanks for your quick reply Russell, it's good to know that there are no such rules in place. KR, Matt.

Hello all, I'm a Pom (now an Aussie citizen) who has recently married my Thai girlfriend here in Australia. We had known each other for 4 years and had been living together in Thailand for a couple of years before I moved back to Australia. My girlfriend joined me soon afterwards and has been staying here on a 3 month tourist visa, but will be returning to Bangkok in 2 weeks and submitting a Partner Visa application (paperwork done). I am aware that the processing time will be about a year, so it would be great if she can return to Australia on another tourist visa during that time, so that we can be together whilst the Partner Visa application is being processed. I am aware that she will have to go offshore again once the visa is to be granted, so on this occasion she is going to apply for a 12-month tourist visa so hopefully she won't have to leave the country before then. (If they only grant a 3-month one then I guess that will be better than nothing!) My question for the forum is does anyone know of any restrictions on the issuing of tourist visas which would mean that she would be obliged to spend a minimum period of time in Thailand before being allowed to apply for another tourist visa? I haven't been able to find any info on the DIAC website, but was hoping that there might be someone out there who'd had a similar experience. Many thanks in advance for your help. Regards, Mart.