RivieraKid

Rehabilitation of offenders act would not apply to a crime in Australia (theft from Coles).

Aaah, D'Oh!. Yes, I completely missed that bit :embarrassed:

We recently lodge our 190 application. I am the main applicant and my partner is the secondary applicant. We answered “no” to the question on the application “ has any applicant ever been convicted of a crime or offence in any country (including any conviction which is now removed from official records)?”. When perhaps we should have answered “yes”.

 

My partner has a spent conviction, he was caught shop lifting 4 years ago from Coles supermarket. We assumed as it was a spent conviction, we did not have to declare it but it has shown up in his police clearance… are we now completely screwed?? What should we do?

AJ (and as you've realised yourself) is absolutely right - you really should have declared the conviction.

In any case, you haven't helped your situation at all. The fact that it was so recent, is for theft, and if the CO chooses to take a hard line they may consider your statement that there are no convictions to be a pattern of dishonesty.

All is not necessarily lost, however - this is all pretty much guesswork. The single most important thing to do is contact your CO and discuss the issue. As AJ says, you're going to have some explaining to do, but migration is a very stressful activity and you won't be the first applicant to have made a mistake in the heat of the moment.

Contact your CO, be absolutely 100% frank, open, and honest - I can't stress that enough - and see where that gets you. You've come this far so giving up isn't really an option.