Beatts

Hi there I am working in Brisbane on a 457 visa and have decided to move on from Australia. As I'm on a 457 visa I assume I'm entitled to claim back my super (after tax) but my questions are a) can I apply as soon as my contract (and visa) are cancelled or do I have to wait until I've physically left Australia and b) does anyone know how long it takes for an application to claim back super to be processed (i.e. paid!) Thanks folks Paul

I know what you mean moving 2 melbourne. But, hypothetically, lets say I never saw the speeding ticket as I'd sold my house to come out here and the letter was, say, just thrown in the bin by the new house owner, so I was totally clueless as to ever being caught speeding that day (which was the case until this morning!). If I came to change my licence over from a Uk to Oz one in say 3 years time, would the fine have multiplied to 000's or would they simply say theres an outstanding $130 fine which you must pay before you get your licence!

Hi there I was wondering if someone could give me some advice. I recently found out that a speeding ticket had been sent home to my address in Northern Ireland for a very minor speeding offence on the Gold Coast in October. I only found this out when I got one of my parents to have look through my post recently to check if there was anything worth noting! It happened when we first arrived here and hired a vehicle with Hertz on my UK driving licence and therefore Hertz provided the Queensland Police with my address details for back home. The ticket is demanding a $130 fine and 1 demerit point on my licence (which I'm assuming is meaningless to a UK licence). The issue is that if I hadn't asked my parents to check my post I would never have known about the ticket and therefore should I jut ignore it, i.e. do overseas speeding tickets get discarded after a while by the local police? I only found out about it today and it states that the payment was due on 22nd December 2011. If I was here on holiday and found the letter on my return home then I would probably have no problem ignoring it but I'm here for potentially 4 years and may want to change my licence over to to a local one in time. I suppose I'm asking if this will impact on changing over if I ignore the fine and whether the fine will grow and grow the longer I ignore it. The issue with that however, is that for all they know I could have sold up completely and moved here and have never seen the letter that was sent home. In fact I wouldnt have seen it had I not asked one of my parents to check the post. I also don't know how they can apply demerit points to a UK licence. I thought they may just take the fine from the credit card that Hertz had from my rental period but I'm not sure what happens in this situation. Any advice apprciated Paul

The best thing about this forum Dave is that you'll never get criticised for asking 'daft' or 'obvious' questions because no matter what stage of the move you are in you can bet there are loads of others in the same boat. I spent months in the migration section asking daft questions about visa applications and always had more than enough people willing to help but also interested onlookers too who had the same questions. Now that I have my visa's I'm stalking the shipping and Queensland suburbs sections with the same daft questions, but answering peoples questions where I can back in the migration one based on my own experience with immigration You'll be an expert in no time :smile: Paul

I think each case is different Noel. I put my application in with a cv, scan of my uni degree certificate, scan of passport data page for the 3 of us, marriage cert, birth cert for son. I was expecting them to come back with a list as long as your arm of additional information required (police checks, skills test, work references etc) but all they asked for was my health insurance certificate and it was done within 24 hours of me sending that in. Think it depends on your occupation really in terms of police checks, skills test etc Paul

Heading to Brisbane, starting work in the CBD at start of November. Starting to get very real now!! My visa was submitted on 5th August and I got an acknowledgement of receipt on Friday 8th. It took exactly 4 weeks to get a case officer and then a further day to approve as I had the certificate ready to send to them. Has your company got their nomination application approved yet? This took 8 weeks for my company so this took a lot of time and I couldnt make my application until this approval came through Where you off to anyway?

Stu I got my 457 visa granted on Friday evening and the only thing they looked for in addition to what I provided was evidence of private health insurance. I went with a company called www.iman.com.au on advice from some of the guys here and as soon as they sent me the certificate I forwarded it straight away to my case officer and the visa was granted the next day so it did the trick. As far as I'm aware you can cancel the policy as soon as you get to Australia and register for Medicare so you only have to make the initial payment to the insurer. I wouldn't mind getting that confirmed though! Hope this helps Paul

Btw, last nights email was exactly 4 weeks after I submitted the paper application to them via fax

Hey folks, just posting an update..... Got an email last night advising that a case officer had begun considering my application and requested a couple of pieces of extra info (Birth certificate for my son etc). I emailed them to her straight away and got this response..... Dear Mr Beatty Thank you for your quick response, as a result your file was still with me and I have been able to finalise your application. Please notify me if you have not received the official notification within the next 24hrs. Kind regards Selina Ehue Does this mean I am nearly there?????? Or could they come back looking for more infor, or even refuse the application!! Aaargh!!!

Hi Bev Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be any co-ordination of online and paper applications. I tried previously to submit my applicaiton online and the system just froze out and crashed as I didn't have any reference numbers. I was then told that my prospective employer's nomination application was done through paper copy, therefore no TRN was generated, therefore I couldn't apply online either. I tried the link you sent me previously and got a reply basically informing me about my failed online application, as per below: Good morning , We can see that you attempted to lodge an application with the Department except your application was not saved or completed. Please use the below link to start a new online application and submit when you are ready. http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/evisitor.htm Regards eVisa Help Desk eService Support Section Client Strategy & Performance Division Department of Immigration and Citizenship PO Box 25 Belconnen ACT 2616 Australia I emailed them back and told them that I ended up putting in a paper copy and simply wanted to get a TRN so that I could track the application and I got the exact same response as above!! It looks as if the departments which process online and paper applications are completely different entities and have no co-ordination with each other at all and it just seems to me, unless somebody knows otherwise, that if you submit the application as a paper copy you simply have to wait until you get your approval, with no mechanism for checking the process along the way. Which is extremely frustrating! Paul

Hi Folks Could anybody advise if you are able to check the progress of a paper application in a similar way to checking the online version? I had to submit mine by fax as the company submitted all the nomination application forms in paper format so there were no TRN numbers etc that I could use for an online application. Anyway, I got an email telling me that my application had been received but the girl who sent the email went on to say that it would be at least 3-4 weeks before my application would be allocated to a case officer and then a further 60 days for processing, which I am struggling to comprehend to be honest! I was under the misguided impression that once the nomination was approved I could simply submit my application and all would be sorted in a few days. This has thrown our timescales completely in terms of handing in notice at current work, booking flights, getting house here rented out and start date at new employer. Anyway, aside from the grumbling, I'm trying to find way to monitor the progress of the application as I can't do it online in the usual way and I doubt I will get regular email updates until its approved. I just hate waiting, with no inclination of where the application is at! Thanks Paul

No probs at all. I'll keep you posted on this thread what we end up doing and how it goes. We'll likely be flying late Sept / early Oct (visa permitting of course!!) Thanks again for the links, much appreciated Paul

Hi Susie Thanks a mil for that. I noticed you are a bit of an oracle when it comes to the Transport and Shipping section so I was hoping to hear from you!! That looks very snug indeed lol and we'll get Harry squeezed in there somewhere!! Thanks again Paul

Hi folks Has anyone flown with Air Asia from the Uk? And if so could provide any feedback? They are blowing the competition out of the water price wise but I'm slightly concerned with the budget nature of it (legroom, reclining seats etc). There will be myself, my wife and our 19 month old son Harry so the plan was to fly from London to Kuala Lumpur and stay for a day or two to chill out (essentially for Harry's sake) and then get another flight from there to Brisbane/Gold Coast. The big advantage with Air Asia (apart from the price) is the fact that they seem to have an overnight, non stop flight from London to KL and potentially Harry will sleep for the majority of the flight which wouldn't be the case if it was an earlier flight or required stopovers etc. Sooooo, any thoughts??? Thanks in advance Paul

Hi Kasper I've just applied for health insurance through IMAN to support my 457 application. They seem to specialise in oversea's visitors. Website is http://www.austhealth.com/ I'm sure they will have something to suit you too for your working holiday. Alternatively you could try Bupa Australia but not sure of the website. I tried them and IMAN seemed slightly cheaper Paul