John S

I am a UK national and my medicals and police checks, for 3 different countries, were completed in September 2013. My visa application was made in June 2013 and CO assigned in July 2013. I receive the same message as others here, the visa is undergoing routine processing. I have worked in the Middle East for the last 5 years so this is what is holding everything up. I have watched, my hopeful, visa approval dates come and go and there is still no end in sight. It's very frustrating to say the least. I am a bit concerned about Blossom's comments regarding having to do new medicals, which should also mean new police checks, if the existing ones have expired. One of the police checks took 5 months to get. I had been told that DIAC can grant you an extra 6 months waiver on police checks and medicals but I do not know if this is true. Looks like I should ask my agent to contact the CO about that otherwise I will have another 5 month wait for a new police check which could slow things up even further. Good luck to all here on the visa. It appears though that there is nothing we can do about it except sit and wait.

Well, almost 8 months since my visa application I am still waiting. Annoying, frustrating and depressing doesn't even start to explain it. I have had no correspondance from the CO since October at which time I answered all the questions asked and provided the requested documents. It's like a form of torture just being left dangling like this. I, like everybody else, have so many plans and arrangements to make but simply can not make any of them. I have watched as my planned, hoped for, visa approval dates came and went with absolutely no information at all. I hope everybody else going through migration has a far better experience than I am having. :sad: John.

Wow, thanks Bonnie. We are only planning to visit for a short trip but that information could be very useful. I am an electrician and would like to get started on my license paperwork ASAP. If I could get a bridging visa then I should be able to do this. The contract I am currently on ends in July so I would like to get things moving before then if possible. That way I could start looking for work pretty much as soon as I finish here. Can you tell me what tourist visa I should apply for that would give me no restrictions and allow me to apply for a Bridging Visa with Form 1005? Thanks again for your help and any other you can provide. John.

Hi, Lebourvellec. That is what I feared may happen after reading stuff on the forum about other scenrio's. It seems, like you say, if you have one visa and obtain another it cancels out the one you already have. I've still got a couple of months before I was hoping to visit so hopefully the PR visa will come through in that time. I've been waiting almost 6 months already. If not I'll have to reconsider coming over for a holiday as I do not want to risk losing the PR visa. Thanks for your help. John.

Hi, hope somebody can help here. We are currently waiting for our 190 PR visa to come through. We were assigned our CO in July but because of my extensive travel and working in foreign countries the 190 visa is taking a painstakingly long time. Apparently this is for security checks, all other paperwork has been completed and handed in months ago. We are planning to take a short trip to Perth from April 5th - 11th, only for a week, as we will be holidaying in Thailand at that time. We just want to go and have a look around the area as we have not been before. We will not be there any longer than the week we have in mind as we have other travel plans after that. If we have still not had PR approved I would like to apply for tourist visas for myself and family. We are from the UK so we can get the electronic tourist visa. Does anybody know which is the best one to suit our needs? My agent says we should be careful if applying for a tourist visa as the CO would have to be informed. Obviously I do not want the application for a tourist vias to have any effect on our PR visa. Does anybody have any advice on this? We just want to go ahead and have a look around Perth to give us a head start for the future. Hopefully we will have PR visa by then but if not I would like to apply for a TV sometime in March. Thanks, John.

As stated you will need both and the Thai PCC is easy to obtain, I just got one myself in September. You can go to the police station on Sukhumvit Road next to Siam BTS station to get your Thai PCC. You can download information here: http://www.pcscenter.sb.police.go.th/eng/

Hi Blossom, I am from the UK and applying for a 190, State Sponsored, visa through Skillselect. To explain a little more: I have been working overseas for the last 5 years and spent a couple of years holidaying in SE Asia in the last 10 years, hence the 3 police checks. In total I needed 4 but one country can not provide one unless I actually go that country. Iraq is not a country I would like to visit without having military support. Low and high risk countries only appear to be determined by whether or not the country issues ETA (Electronic Travel Authority), passports and not where I have worked or visited. While I appreciate I have worked in some, shall we say, dubious countries and understand a delay for investigating this, a minimum 14 month timeframe seems unreasonable. Here is a link that some people may find handy, regarding visa processing timeframes. http://www.immi.gov.au/about/charters/client-services-charter/visas/8.0.htm#a While some people may have visas processed quicker it is not guaranteed that everybody else will be afforded the same luxury. However, as you will see from the link above, it states 6 months processing time for a 190 visa, although I agree it could be a guideline. For a CO to state that it will take "at least 14 months" from October appears to be a rather obnoxious statement to make. It shows no understanding of DIAC guidelines or consideration to the visa applicant. Please don't take this reply the wrong way Blossom, I am not trying to argue with yourself. I am just extremely annoyed that a CO, with a responsibility to the applicants, can be so ignorant and unhelpful. The CO has not even answered a simple question of whether or not our medicals have been cleared. Trust me, I am restraining myself a lot and not writing what I would really like to say here as I do not want to offend anybody. Hopefully everybody else here has a better experience with T4 than what I am having.

Visa lodged in June and CO allocated in July about 5 weeks wait. 190 visa for WA, from the UK. I work overseas so could not complete medicals and police checks until September, I provided 3 police checks from 3 different countries in total, I was only asked for 2 but I knew I needed 3. Last month I was asked for work history dating from 1990 - 2004. What some initials meant in one of my employers names and a copy of my old passport. If I had not of provided the 3rd police check I know I would have been asked for it by now. That would have involved travelling to SE Asia to complete. My agent asked CO to confirm if all medicals were cleared in October. All we received was an ignorant reply stating that I should be patient and that the visa approval could take at least 14 months from this time. Strange, as it says 190 visas will take a maximum of 6 months to process on the DIAC website. The CO did not even answer the question that was asked. I have been waiting over 5 months since my visa submittal and 4 months since receiving CO. The CO has not answered the one question I had asked in all of this time and I have submitted everything requested of me.

Hi, I have applied for the 190, PR visa but do not have a CO yet. My application was sent in on June 21st. I need to book medicals through eHealth and was considering doing this in Thailand as I will be visiting there to pick up a police check next month, while on R&R from work. I have a TRN number and have been given Forms 26 & 160 by my agent. I will complete these for myself, wife and son and have our referral letters. Is it now just a simple matter of calling the hospital and booking the examinations? Thanks for any help anyone can give. John.

I have been speaking with Craig at Ironlady and he has been extremely helpful. I have been looking at buying a top end car and bringing it over next year. I'm considering brining a 2008, Mercedes C class, C63 AMG or similar and an Audi A4 in the wife's name. These cars are worth far more in Australia than they are in the UK. My question is, does anybody have any experience of selling cars like this or, should I say imported cars? Do UK imports bring as much as original Aussie / German Aussie cars? Also, what about Satnav? Can you get a UK car with satnav reprogrammed for Australia? I'm sure you can but has anybody done this before? John.

James, If you click on the more details section of the car ad it will show you the private seller resale value. John.

Hi Danny, I would have been doing the test with you if I could have made it home, but I can't My agent has spoke with Vetassess and they are going to try to squeeze me onto the April assessment. I do have some books with plenty of info in, on PDF. I also have some stuff from my HNC course that has lots in about resistors in series and parallel. If you PM me your email address I will email them to you. I also have some drawings of DOL motors that are really easy to follow and understand. And if you don't mind, you can give me some advice on what you had to do in your assessment. Cheers, John.

Hi Louise, thanks for your reply. At the moment I am having a nightmare with Vetassess. I work overseas and my time off is extremely limited. I / my immigration agent have been dealing with Vetasses since last year to secure an assessment at a time that would suit me. They contacted me and told me there was an assessment in April, I paid the money and they have recently told me that the assessment date is full, they did not even have the date posted on their website. I called them this morning and they told me it was overspill from the February and March months that filled the April date. I was then told I have been booked for an assessment in March, a date I did not ask for and can not attend. So it appears someone has been delayed in taking their assessment because of me and I have been refused an acceptable date for my assessment because of myself being booked on an earlier date than I wanted and did not ask for. Does that make sense? Because it doesn't make any sense to me. I even asked if there was places available in Cape Town and they are full. It now looks like I have to wait until Vetassess see fit to offer me a date that suits me. This means putting my R&R back at least a month, probably a lot more. This then effects the time date of my EOI. It now looks doubtful that I will even manage to make an application before the end of the visa year closes in June, even after all this had been explained to Vetassess countless times over the last 5 months. Obviously, peeved off is a slight understatement. Anyway, if it is ok with yourself and husband I would like to message you about some of the finer details of the assessment if that is ok? I have so much conflicting information it is unbelievable. It seems no one really wants to tell you exactly what you will face. Looking at the fact sheet from Vetasses it all seems pretty straight forward but again, I'm just not sure as it doesn't give you any real detail. Thanks again for your help. John.

Hi, I am electrician who is waiting to sit the Vetassess Practical Assessment. I have completed my IELTS test so when the practical assessment is completed I can lodge my EOI. I have checked the electricians thread but there doesn't appear to be anything in great detail about the assessment. The information provided by Vetassess is on what to expect is very limited and does not give much definition. I am aware that there is calculations to perform, installing / wiring, fault finding in DC circuits, testing, isolation, etc, etc. Basically, can anyone give me a more detailed explanation of what the assessment involves for each part? Any assistance is greatly appreciated.