The Constant Traveller

Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I will be leaving this forum now, seeing that my partner and I have finally received our PR. Thanks everyone, particularly Kimmo, for your great support, regular updates and kind words, it has been a great help. I am keeping my fingers crossed for all of you that you will be getting your visas within a very short time now. Things seem to be moving quickly at the moment so let's hope you guys are next in line.

Congratulations!

Indeed. A quick jump across the pond to validate our visa will be the next step and then we will see how things pan out. :-) Any news at your end? I had a strong feeling that my CO was only waiting for us to upload our stuff so that she could tick all the boxes and send off the grant letter. Honestly, if we had uploaded everything the day she contacted us the first time, I believe we would have had our visa the next day. Maybe they are in a hurry to get rid of us now?

Thanks! Yesterday I felt like celebrating but then I found out that my partner now wants to stay put for at least another two years. This is what happens when a decision has been pending for too long. People get on with their lives and motivations change. More obstacles and challenges ... oh well, at least I am used to it by now.

Thank you. Keeping my fingers crossed for you guys!

Sending documents to the CO via email is also fine. My CO belongs to Team 34/Brisbane. And now the good news: We got our visa this morning! I had just sent off an email to my CO telling her that I had just uploaded half a ton of relationship evidence and asking if there was anything else I needed to do and in response I got my grant letter pretty much straight away. :-)

Hi Kimmo, Yes, the email states which team is processing the application. There wasn't much in the initial email. Just a "Please see the attached information". With the email came three word documents. One was titled 'Client Service Information' and was an explanation why they are collecting data from applicants and what they are doing with it. The second one was a letter, which told me that the department has begun considering my application and that they are requesting more information from me within the next 28 days. It also talked about an attached checklist (which wasn't attached) and there was another attachment that described in more detail the information that I am supposed to provide. There is a link on this website that I have used to upload my documents: http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/general-skilled-migration-attachments.htm. The system is very basic. There is a drop-down menu where you can choose which type of document you want to upload (domestic PCC, foreign PCC, Form 80, relationship evidence, passport, etc.), a field where you can write a very short description and an upload button. Once you have uploaded your document it appears in a table alongside the description you wrote. A bummer is that you cannot update or edit it once it is online, so any mistakes you make (typos, wrong document) stay online. By the way, our medicals were done on Monday and on Wednesday the system already showed them as finalised. That was quick!

Which team is your CO? It will be interesting to see how long they will take to process our respective applications. My partner and I got our medicals done yesterday and I will upload all my documents before Friday. I am still waiting to receive a couple of stat decs and need some stuff signed by a lawyer.

Congratulations, I did not realise that you finally got a CO as well. That's great news.

Hi Kimmo, The PCCs were actually the easiest, they shouldn't take long at all. I have been in contact with my CO and other than PCCs, Form 80 and medicals the department wants up-to-date evidence that my partner and I are still in a relationship and haven't broken up since we lodged our application in 2008.

I'd love to know what checks they are doing that can take up to 15 months.

This seems a very long wait, even if you should come from a HR country and they are doing security checks. What was the last thing you heard from your CO?

It is a litte bizarre because it almost seems as if they haven't looked at any of the stuff we sent them in 2008. I asked my CO what types of evidence I need to provide and she pointed me to a website where there is a list of things you can attach to your application as evidence of a de facto relationship. We did attach all of them in 2008. I am now going to send them new (not only updated) statutory declarations from myself and my partner (previously we did a combined one and apparently they do not like that) and three new ones written by friends of ours. I did not have the first ones in 2008 witnessed by a solicitor so I will have it done with this new set of declarations, just to be on the safe side.

By the way, my online status has not changed yet, so obviously there is no direct or immediate correlation between CO assignment and online status. One thing that is puzzling me is this one: "Please provide evidence of your continuing de facto relationship. (Please refer to the attached information sheet, which details types of documentation required)." There is no attached information sheet, at least nothing remotely to do with relationship status and how to prove it, so I am in the dark about what kind of documentation they might accept. My relationship status has not changed, everything is still the same as it was five years ago when I initially sent them various documents to prove that my partner and I had an ongoing relationship (lease, bank statements, utility bills, statutory declaration from friends and family, etc.). Any idea what they might want now? The same stuff all over again?

Hi everyone, it seems I have got a CO! It is someone from team 34. She is requesting more information, most of which I won't be able to provide within 28 days, I reckon, for example a new passport. I will do my best, of course, but some stuff will come with a delay.

No change in my online status. It has been 'application being processed further' since early 2010 when I sent an enquiry to DIAC and someone there opened my file to take a look at it.

Correct, no CO and it seems like a whole lot of us got that email around the same time. There are similar postings to mine in the other thread. If you haven't received this email yet you should probably get in touch with your agent and ask for an update. I haven't used an agent so everything is going to me directly. By the way, 'allocated' within the next 12 months could potentially mean that once the application has been allocated it could take another 12 months for it to get processed. I am from a low risk country and I thought this would mean a relatively short processing period, however, now that I have read up on all the checks they may want to do (employment background checks first and foremost), this could take a long time still. Both my partner and I have changed jobs a few times and have had periods of unemployment in between. We also travel a lot and giving them a list of all my international trips in the last 10 years is a real headache. I have listed what I remembered and could reconstruct from stamps and visas in my passports, but there are bound to be flaws and gaps. My partner was away on business trips around Europe and to the US once or twice every month for a while, so it is even worse in his case. When we applied back in 2008 I didn't think there was a need for us to fill in the dreaded form 80. The stuff I had to fill in online was not quite as detailed as far as I remember. I certainly did not have to provide the name of my thesis supervisor (no idea, too long ago, and the physical evidence is God knows where at my parents' place). I am actually surprised they don't ask which underwear brand I prefer, particularly since I saw a posting somewhere else where someone got asked about his sleeping arrangements with his wife (the couple already had a child and another on the way). Why would they possibly want to know that?

Hi all. I received an email today requesting me to prepare and send form 80, pcc and medicals in order to facilitate quicker processing of my application once a case officer has been allocated to me. In the email it says: "Under the current ministerial direction your application is in Priority Group 5 and; subject to any changes in the priority processing direction; it is anticipated that your application will be allocated to a case officer within the next twelve (12) months."

Yes, it would be absolutely ridiculous if they scrapped our applications now, wouldn't it? Your application date is only one month after mine and we are both pretty close to May 2008. I still wonder how some 175 applicants with later application dates managed to get processed before us, though. Either processing order is by application date or it isn't, so how come a few selected people got processed even though they applied months after we did? I am happy for those people, but I would really like to understand the selection process, that's all.

Does anybody else remember the 2010 reform to skilled migration, which included the cancellation of almost 20,000 General Skilled Migration visa applications lodged offshore before September 2007? I wonder if there is a possibility of this kind of backlog clearing happening once again, particularly after a change of government. The cost to the Australian government would not even be that significant (not sure how many applicants are still waiting but certainly not millions) and since we all paid upfront (i.e. we gave Australia an interest-free loan) the money used for the refund would not be coming out of Australia's own pocket. It could be a neat way for the new minister to start afresh and not have to deal with the thousands of applications that the previous government did not want to deal with, either. For example, they could decide to scrap everyone who applied before the introduction of SkillSelect as that would give them a valid excuse (improved assessment method, more targeted selection, etc.). Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the possibility of this happening is more likely than DIAC continuing to process our applications until everyone has got their visa. What I am saying is that I am not discounting the possibility of DIAC doing this kind of clean-up again, also because the last refund action took place three years ago and since then unprocessed Cat 5 applications have been allowed to pile up once more.

Thank you, I relate to what you are saying. I also thought that I might annoy them if I contacted them before they got in touch with me, however, after nearly five years of waiting I am beginning to wonder if not doing or saying anything is really the best strategy. I got in touch with them once a few years ago when my partner (secondary applicant) got his qualification in a profession that was highly sought after in Australia at the time (probably still is). They accessed our file then to take a brief look at it and the status changed to "processing further", like you say. My guess is that happens automatically when someone at DIAC opens one's file but it doesn't really mean anything.

Sounds like you already tried and failed to get in touch with them. Is that right?

This could very well be the case. I am also from a low-risk country and I have not been contacted by DIAC yet. I am wondering if I should give them a nudge though. If yes, is this the address I should write to if I lodged an online application without using an agent? Skilled.Migration@immi.gov.au Thanks!

No news at my end yet.