FKS

37 minutes ago, Parkesy said:

Not necessarily. I work for Australia's top university and Ive been waiting 7.5 months so far with application still received, TRT 186

That must be frustrating - it does seem looking through the spreadsheets though that many of the uni lecturer roles seem to be approved in about 5 months (that said my husband's uni role is not as lecturer but faculty head). I guess there will always be exceptions but I can see why the perception exists that these type of roles do seem to be approved faster. Fingers crossed your's will be sorted soon. 

2 minutes ago, Fida said:

Congratulations to both, When it comes to doctor, university faculties and some high businesses that  directly or indirectly benefit Government get their processing Quick. Immi cant challenge universities, or Medical boards etc.. I have seen many many applicants from above who got their PRs in less than 4-5 months with no sponsorship docs asked...Happy for you guys

 

But its Ridiculous that organizations that cant profit Govt/dept gets long waiting hours .

 

 

No one should be waiting that long for these decisions that put their lives on hold in this way. 4 months felt painful enough (well that's on the back of another 2 years wait to apply for transition). I can only imagine how it feels to be waiting a year or more :-( 

We got a call from our migration this morning with the good news that our PR was granted today (from NSW PESE). 

Transition Visa for 5 people as a Faculty Head (in a university). Applied for nomination on 8th Sept 2017 and main application in on 18th Sept 2017. We heard about both at the same time (no extra info requested after applying). I've had to login to view all 5 letters for myself to believe it! 

We have clearly been lucky with a short wait time but hope it reassures people that the immigration team are working! 

We can finally start making some decisions about secondary school for our oldest child and all sorts of other things. Good luck to everyone still waiting - such a difficult time especicially those of you waiting a year or more! 

6 hours ago, arunsabapathy said:

LOL, l just wanted to post the update about my status and clearly did not want to upset people who are waiting for it. In that case, I will delete my post and will just have the google doco updated. Cheers
 

Congratulations to you - what a great Christmas present!  personally think it is encouraging to hear positive stories with all the (justified) frustration felt by so many here who have been waiting so long, so no need to delete! It is interesting though that others are being told that they are only processing until June 2017 when that clearly isnt' the case! 

Enjoy!

1 hour ago, Dons_30032017 said:

The nomination wont show on IMMI account. Your MA will be notified once it is approved. Welcome to the waiting game

30 minutes ago, Dons_30032017 said:

Yes, you can import your visa application, but not Nomination application. hope it helps.

Sorry - me being confusing there. Yes thanks - I know someone (perhaps it was you!) did tell me that about the nomination.

In any case I meant the application not the nomination. Doesn't really matter I guess as it's not as though it actually makes anything go any faster to be able to personally check it - probably makes it feel even longer!! Time to forget about it for a while perhaps - well pretend not to be thinking about it anway 

40 minutes ago, Dons_30032017 said:

The nomination wont show on IMMI account. Your MA will be notified once it is approved. Welcome to the waiting game

Thanks - is there any reason why we can't import the application to our IMMI account (where we have our 457, other short visas from before this and medical information)? 

Our letter the MA forwarded from IMMI said: 

"You can use your application ID XXXXXXXXXX in ImmiAccount to search and view your
application before it has been decided. To access ImmiAccount visit our website at
www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa/Immi"

So I just assumed if we put the ID number and passport number in it would link the application to our immi account. 

So today we put in the actual Visa application - put in the Employer nomination 10 days ago. So now I guess we just sit and wait (and wait....!)?

One thing though to keep me occupied is that I notice our nomination is not showing in our IMMI account. I'm wondering if this is because our MA lodged it. Do I import it so that I can see any developments (though obviously not expecting any for many months). 

Oddly I actually feel less settled now we're waiting on this compared to when we knew our 457 was active and running until June 2019 as I assume if this application is unsuccessful we may lose our 457 and have to return to the UK even sooner. Odd feeling! 

8 hours ago, snifter said:

Did you use Isofix in the UK? If so then any car seat using a seatbelt is going to be a big change in terms of some movement. There would be movement in car seats fitted with a seatbelt only. Also having the top tether here is an extra feature and helps in impact. Having a bit of movement when a car seat is fitted with a seatbelt isn't a bad thing, in fact its normal.
If the car seat doesn't fit the seat well (some seats are more bucket like or sloping or some such for a particular car seat for example) and there was a lot movement, then I'd be concerned. 

Isofix isn't automatically safer in terms of impact. What Isofix does is take away the error for installing incorrectly (and therefore unsafely), although even Isofix can be installted incorrectly it seems  Some Isofix car seats fair badly during testing, same as some installed with a seatbelt. Some seatbelt ones fair better than some Isofix. End of the day, a properly tested highly rated car seat is going to get my vote over something less well rated in testing. Isofix or seatbelt, whatever is the better option and fits the car well will get my $$ or ££. 

From Which UK 

Seatbelts vs Isofix in a crash

When a car crashes it stops suddenly, but the child car seat and its passenger carry on moving. A child car seat is designed to protect your child by holding him or her in place, absorbing some of the forces of the crash, and actively controlling how their body moves to reduce injury to their internal organs, and delicate areas such as the head, neck and abdomen. When a seat is installed using a seat belt, there is some give in the belt. This means the seat moves slightly more in a crash, but the forces transmitted to the seat (and hence the child) can be slightly  lower, because of the energy absorbed as the belt flexes.

With Isofix mounts the connection between the seat and the car is more rigid, and more of the crash force is transferred between them.  In a sideways impact the car seat is often held more firmly on the seat, so there can be less sideways movement, and more force is transferred to the seat. However, some Isofix car seats now have connectors which allow for a bit of sideways movement, to compensate for this.

Our testing shows that car seats with Isofix connectors can sometimes get a worse overall safety score than the same seat installed using the adult seat belt.  In a car crash the car rapidly decelerates, but the car seat and child in it carry on moving. Often the actual difference in safety of the seat will be negligible. Some Isofix versions of seats do better overall than their belted versions.

The key thing to remember is that Isofix was introduced to make fitting a child car seat much easier, and to lower the risk of getting it wrong. If a seat is installed incorrectly, it won’t give as much protection as it’s designed to, which could lead to a higher risk of serious injury.

Read more: http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/child-car-seats/article/isofix-child-car-seats/are-isofix-child-car-seats-safer - Which?

 

 

From the Britax website

Incorrectly Installing
With so many belts and straps, ensuring correct car seat installation can be confusing. You should always follow the manufacturer’s instructions on how to fasten straps, making sure the car seat is secured tightly to your vehicle with no more than a couple of centimetres movement from back to front or side to side. If you do not feel confident installing the car seat yourself, you can consult a professional Child Safety Restraint fitting service.

Hi no we didn't have isofix in the UK. 

1 hour ago, barker said:

To clarify this, the Bridging Visa A takes over if/when your 457 or other substantive visa expires. It basically sits in the background doing nothing until then. But beware, if your current substantive visa expires, and you somehow find yourself only on a Bridging visa A, you will need to apply for a Bridging visa B to travel outside Australia. 

Ah thanks - so it won't matter if my husband is out of Australia over the coming few months (our 457 expires in June 2019) but if we haven't heard about PR by june 2019 (!!!) then the BVA kicks in and we can't leave the country without a BVB? Crikey these things are all very complicated - I tried to read through it all on the immigration site last night and my head was spinning from it all! I also keep hearing rumours about having to leave the country briefly when PR is awarded but I guess that's a whole separate issue! 

5 minutes ago, Ozdream1 said:

Don't worry mate and welcome in the PR race
Your bridging visa will run while waiting for your visa approval. This visa is valid during the whole waiting period.
Don't worry for that you have the rights you can freely travel etc...

And You'll definitely get your visa before June 2019!

Ok thanks - my husband has to work trips out of the country before Christmas so I was just panicking that he couldn't leave the country etc! Funny our MA hasn't mentioned this - or maybe they didn't as it doesn't change anything for us. Good luck with your application! 

Just now, Ozdream1 said:

No.. my 457 is active and I got a bridging visa the day I applied. Of course this bridging visa offers the same right than my 457 because it's still active
Check your immigration account. You should one letter.

OK thanks - we've only put in the nomination (last week) but were expecting to put in the main application in the next day or so. So the bridging Visa will run until the same date. I don't know much about it but thought the bridging visas were quite short term (e.g. wouldn't run until June 2019).

9 hours ago, Ozdream1 said:

It's even bizarre that your MA request more money?
Your 457 visa is automatically transferred to a bridging visa once you apply for PR. (For DE onshore and TRT.)
So even if your 457 expires your bridging visa is still active..
It's just different if you plan to travel overseas I guess.

Is that for all 457 visa holders? Or just those whose 457s expire? Our 457 runs out in June 2019 and I'm hoping we're not already onto bridging Visas before we've heard anything about PR. 

9 minutes ago, sbrowne9 said:

No, I didn't personally use an MA as I think we had all our visa documentation in order, and the company didn't use one as the HR guy had 'submitted loads of them before.' I hope that things work out for you @Ozdream1 , and also thanks @Dons_30032017, hope you get an approval soon!

I have a question which I would really appreciate any advise on; my employer and their new migration lawyer have asked if I want to resubmit, and the migration agent has said that he can submit the visa as decision ready, and put in a 'priority process request' which can speed up the application. This offer has come after my meeting with another independent migration agent, and I cant get back to her to ask her until the end of this week/next week. Just wondering if anyone has every heard of this 'priority process request'? If so, how much could time could it shave off my application?

I am no expert on this but we asked a question of our MA recently and they said "There is no longer any framework priority processing for ‘Decision Ready’ applications." 

It doesn't sound very encouraging but I don't know if this is just with our agent or an immigration thing. 

Awful situation for you :-( 

Thanks that's helpful. I just got paranoid they hadn't actually lodged it. Will hopefully lodge main application very soon - just still finalising documents to be attached. 

Does anyone know if you log into your immigration account whether an employer nomination should show up. Our MA lodged our nomination on Friday but there is nothing to suggest it has been lodged there. Perhaps it only shows something when you lodge your actual Visa application? I wasn't sure - the only thing we can see on our immigration site is our medicals as we had these done a couple of weeks ago and then our 457visa which were finalised a few years ago. Thanks.

23 hours ago, Dons_30032017 said:

You should be able to apply immediately after you reached the 2 year period. I applied for 186 TRT one week after the 2 year period was completed.

1 week is already gone btw Good luck! 

They are agreeing now to submit nomination on Friday (just over 1 week on). But they said they'd rather give it another week, which I think is odd! While they may think one week doesn't make a difference, it does if the law suddenly changes overnight again as it did in April! 

Hope all goes well for you. 

Our MA is saying that we should wait a week or two after my husband reached the two year mark in his job (he begun on 31st August 2015 and has worked continuously for the same employer in the same role since) before submitting his employer nomination. The nomination is ready to submit and I can't understand why we should delay. They say to give leeway in case... In case of what?! He hasn't had any unpaid leave in this period and the only trips out of Australia have been for work or a family holiday (paid annual leave). 

Has anyone had this with their application? just want them to start the process now.

Thanks for any advice.

On 01/09/2017 at 02:17, Heena12 said:

Even they mention in their email. 

Hi - is this from an email you received from immigration recently? Our MA seems to think we don't need to do a form 80 (we're from the Uk and she says these are rarely requested on Transition 186 applications) and while I'm not keen to do the horrendous form I don't want it to slow things down if we don't! 

Thanks. 

Fi 

11 hours ago, pm79 said:

Thank you FKS. That's very helpful. My kids are 7 and 4. I agree with you about the ridiculousness as the car seats we have in UK are rated one of the safest from safety point of view. But I guess there's nothing much we can do about it. Don't want to take any risk in new country so better to just buy from there. 

Yes, all a bit frustrating! Good luck - especially with shipping the car. I really wanted to bring our's but for us it just wasn't financially viable in the end :-( 

2 hours ago, snifter said:

IIRC Aus testing also includes side impact which iUK testing does not (or at least did not though it may be they do now,  no idea). 

There are plenty of options on the Aus market. The top tether aspect is a really good thing also. It does exactly what it's meant to do if it's used correctly. Isofix here is still used with a top truer iirc so extra safety feature if so.

Isofix is generally viewed as a good option in that it reduces the risk of installing incorrectly and therefore being at risk more in an accident. A good belt and tether car seat fitted properly will do the same. The top tether stops movement. 

In terms of safety, a sit on backless booster is far more dangerous to use even with a seatbelt as it slides around on the seat and moves easily. Also if a kid slips their arms out of the belt they are then only in place with a lap sash as it were. In event or emergency breaking or impact this has the potential to cut into the child and cause very serious injury. I'd never use one even if the child keeps their arms in the seatbelt. That they can slide side to side or forward on impact puts me off also.

Theu are being phased out here because of the safety risks. 

Completely agree about the backless boosters - looks as though they'll be gone in the UK too soon. Our UK seats were designed to protect from side impact and I'm just frustrated as no matter how we try to fix (our very expensive and highly regarded Oz seat) for our youngest it has way more movement than her UK seat ever did and, as a parent, if anything ever happened to her I'd feel guilty for not going with my gut instinct that the UK one was safer regardless of the official tests :-(

The older ones cheaper Oz high back boosters are more similar to our UK ones. Anyway it's just one of those things about moving countries, and clearly I'm not a car seat safey expert so have to try to trust the experts know! 

As others say, yes you do need Oz car seats. We brought our UK ones over in the hope we'd be able to use the UK ones for our two older children (who were 7 and 8 years at the time). We were told that, while legally they didn't have to be in a car seat at all, it would be illegal to put them in a UK car seat. The police told me that in reality they were unlikely to be a problem and acknowledged the ridiculousness of this (at least for my two older children). However, if something happened, I imagine you'd be in trouble unfortunately. Was incredibly annoyed especially as the supposedly safer ones we've bought since moving to Oz seem nowhere as good or secure feeling as our old UK ones! On a practical note Target and Big W sell a wide range of seats. 

On 11/08/2017 at 13:43, VERYSTORMY said:

I would not do your medical until requested. There are a lot of big delays in processing at the moment and it wont speed up the process.

Thanks, that's interesting, we have been advised by our MA that it would be a good idea to do them in advance, as if the CO picks up the file with everything ready it is likely to be faster. Are you suggesting we don't as the medicals might expire before the visa is processed? We're applying for transition 186 visa (job at senior level in a uni which we've been told are going through quite quickly at the moment). 

On 11/08/2017 at 13:02, sk1221 said:

We booked ours about a week ago (2 adults and 1 child) and got our appointment the next day. There were a lot of appointment options for the next 4 days when we looked 

Thanks, that's encouraging. The problem is with the immigration E-medicals site. Good to know that we should be able to get an appointment with BUPA quite quickly once they do eventually fix the site! 

Hi 

Has anyone managed to use the E-medicals my health declarations site in the last 10 days or so. We have been trying to fill in the online forms so that we can get a HAP ID and book our medical for about 10 days and the system hasn't been working. We've spoken to immigration who were completely unable to help or tell us when the problem would be fixed and there is nothing we can do to progress things without the HAP ID to book our medicals, which we wanted to do before lodging our Visa application on 31.8.17. 

Also, does anyone know how long it takes to get an appointment (for a family) once you have a HAP ID. We are in Sydney. 

Thanks for any help! 

FI 

On 09/05/2017 at 18:07, feda16 said:

My wife and I have had a letter with one question asking for the date of her first entry and the passport number used to enter Australia. This was in 1999 and we cant place our hands on her old passport. Anyone had any similar issues and how they overcame them? 

Was this for the main Visa application? We are just trying to fill in the health declarations (in advance of applying for our visa next month) and have been asked for previous passports used to enter Australia. My husband filled in his recent old passport from when we came into the country in 2015. He also came 20 years ago but we assumed that wouldn't be needed (we already have a 457 Visa and don't remember providing it for that). Now I'm concerned we would need to have it now - at what stage in the process were you asked for your old passport number from 1999? Thanks. Fi