OzinEire

Our dog is flying out from Dublin to Melbourne tomorrow! It's been a long process but we couldn't have left her behind. She's my husband's shadow. 

She's crate trained since a pup so shouldn't be too distressed from that end. We've made sure her hair is short for this side in the heat and the 12 hour stopover in Doha where they're let out for a break, stretch their legs and a small bit of food.

We have the vet bedding in the bottom of the crate so that if she does have to pee then the wet will be wicked away and she'll have her last meal tonight and then we'll walk her early tomorrow so hopefully she's pooped before she takes off. 

We also have the water bowl just inside the door. I've seen people use the water pipe things used for guinea pigs and the like but unless they're trained to drink from them then they're pretty useless on the crate. 

We saved some money by doing the rabies and PEQ booking ourselves but they constantly bring in new rules so if you're not confident with lots of paperwork then you're better off paying a pet shipping company I think. Good luck!

3 minutes ago, Greystones said:

Hi Everyone, Yesterday I was granted my 309/100! After all the effort that goes into it it is quite surreal to get the email! I have been following this forum for nearly 2 years now and it has been great. If it is helpful to anyone my timeline is below:

Applied Nov 2020

RFI for medical and police checks - Feb 2021

Uploaded medical and police checks - March 2021

Granted April 2021

We had a pretty straightforward case as we are married, have 3 kids together and a mortgage. Interestingly they didn't request police checks for my wife (my sponsor)

One question I have is - I now have to activate the visa by 12th April 2022 by visiting Australia for the first entry. We will hopefully make the move and do this in one go. But if we aren't ready to move by that date, does anyone know if I can just fly there, activate it and return home without leaving airport and avoid hotel quarantine (if it is still a requirement then)???

Amazing! Congrats! 

DH's 309 finally granted after applying in July 2019. We applied for the 600 visa last week cause we wanted to make sure he'd be able to at least get in the country before we sold our house, booked dogs into mickelham quarantine facility and booked our own flights for July/August.

Actually can't believe it finally came through

8 hours ago, Drumbeat said:

You could consider the hills, Darlington, Glen Forrest, Gooseberry Hill, Kalamunda. I love living in the hills but we're planning to move to Tassie later this year hopefully . Otherwise there is Guildford, Mount Lawley is a little further but some beautiful properties there. Midland isn't the most upmarket area but it does have a lot of facilities, including a newly opened enormous Bunnings .

I've seen these areas being recommended on different groups. Are they fire prone areas? 

16 minutes ago, NicF said:

Given that the only new cases we currently have of Covid-19 in Australia are in those people that have returned from overseas and are currently in hotel quarantine I don't think that is unreasonable.  No where in Australia is currently in lockdown and restrictions have eased throughout the country.  And given the last lockdowns in Victoria and South Australia were caused by Covid escaping hotel quarantine you can't really blame people for not wanting to just open the boarders to anyone that wants to come home to just get off the plane and start taking part in everyday life.  Yes it's hard for those stuck overseas but those caps on flights you so despise are the sole reason Australia is not locked down and most people are able to live relatively normal lives.

At the expense of other Australians though and taking away their legal right to return. No-one is asking to fly home and get off the plane and start mixing with people. Everyone I've spoken to is happy to do and pay for the quarantine. The government have other options which they refuse to entertain and keep passing the buck to individual states. 

The lack of compassion that people have for their fellow countrymen is really disappointing. I guess this is a pointless conversation to have with people that have no idea what it's like to be locked out of your own country. 

Just now, starlight7 said:

It s not a good situation when the majority feel the airports should remain closed to overseas travellers because of the fear of contamination. It comes from the mistakes made last time and the lack of trust in the whole quarantine process. Many of us feel,with some justification, that people from countries like the USA and the UK don’t accept rules and regulations re Covid isolation and are going to spread the disease. Unfair, probably but that is how it is. We would like to remain in our bubble until there is a good vaccination available.

But the problem is with the people running and working the quarantine system then, not the people returning who are locked in hotel rooms for 14 days. Wild to me that the people greeting returning travellers at the airport without even a mask on. Like they're immune to catching and spreading it within the community. 

1 minute ago, Dusty Plains said:

So what is your "home country"?  Is it the country you live in, or is it the country you prefer to to be associated with. As we are now seeing, dual citizenship has always been merely a fair weather arrangement. The "weather" at the moment is anything but fair.

There are a number of dual citizens who regularly post here on PIO  who made the effort to return to Australia months ago. 

 

My home country is Australia. I just happened to have married someone from a different country. Our plan has always been to raise our children in Australia. The casual racism you're throwing out there has not been missed. 

My youngest was 2 months old with no passport and his Australian citizenship took 8 months to be processed. Should I have left him behind because he wasn't "Australian"? It takes 7 months to get pets ready to ship to Australia, should I have left them behind too? 

As an aussie who has been living abroad but planning to move back home for 2 years now with my family, some of the responses here are a disgrace. People don't want to fly home on the government's dime and skip quarantine and risk the Australian populations health. We just want to come home. We want to be able to book our flights that aren't 10x the normal price because the government has put caps on flights. 

The government's advice in March was come home OR if you have a job and a place to stay overseas, then stay put. People have since lost their jobs due to covid or contracts ending or people have dying family members or an infinite number of other reasons. All of which are actually irrelevant because you should be able to return to your own home country! 

I've been living in various stages of lockdown since March, 2m social distancing everywhere, wearing masks to the shops, on school run, public transport, basically anywhere we could come in contact with people outside our immediate family. The Australian government has turned the general public against people returning from abroad making them out to be a massive risk but in reality we've been living with all these precautions for most of the year. 

To say we should just wait it out for how long??? instead of pointing out the obvious that the government should pull their finger out and listen to the experts they hired for advice on getting aussies back home. They're great at telling you they've helped get 40k aussies home but in reality 95% of those people have got themselves home, not on repatriation flights and the government has put them into quarantine and then gave themselves a pat on the back for doing the whole job. 

So sick of hearing "should've come back in March". 

3 hours ago, moominfillyjonk said:

 

 

Have faith! I wrote this to you and then went for a run, thinking that's it I am going to apply for the tourist visa when I get home and.... I just had an email to say both 100/309 have been granted! They must be hard at work processing again, they really must!!

No way! What are the chances lol. Congrats!!! 

Great to see some movement again. 

No updates for us still. Applied July 2019 and received RFI February 2020. Nothing since. Quite disheartening. We've delayed moving plans indefinitely now cause we've no idea what's going on. 

ETA we supplied police checks August 2019 and hubby did his medical Nov 2019 so I'm guessing they'll have to be done again. Hoping there's more leway considering covid delaying everything. 

@Lauren L fingere crossed for us both!

@kazronicus and @Kayse thank you! Didn't even cross my mind to reply to the email. Just done it now

We're still hoping to move to oz by the end of the year. Does anyone know where to find or who to email to let them know and hopefully keep the ball rolling on the visa process. We had just had an RFI to approve permanent visa before everything was put on hold!!! 

I was going to say check your wife is an eligible NZ citizen but honestly I don't think she'll able to apply as a new Zealander if she has Australian citizenship. They're quite strict. 

Having to rethink our moving timeline with the current state of the world. Once the visa is approved, can the applicant fly to Australia to activate without the Australian spouse? Then do they have 5 years to migrate?

We've 3 kids under 5 so a holiday would cost a fortune and I'd be reluctant to have them on a flight anytime in the next 12 months. 

What do people think is going to happen with offshore spouse visas with everything going on? Was hoping to move to oz around the end of the year but worried about the economy now. Likely they'll extend the 12 month entry period from approval date? 

Yes nearly $2 for every £1 you send over at the moment! 

1 hour ago, Lauren L said:

Hi All!!! 

My wife and I lodged our 309/100 visa from the uk last year.. August 2019 and havent hear ANYTHING yet... 

I am aussie and submitted my sponsor application but on the Immi account it still says submitted where as my wife's (main applicant) says recieved.. has anyone else seen this with theirs???

Has anyone from August time last year heard anything yet or even approved? Xx

 

Btw... I am born and bread from Sydney.. but after living in the UK for 4 years we are keen to possibly try Melbourne or Brisbane.. where has/is everyone moving too in Oz? 

 

Lauren  xx

Our accounts had the same submitted and received until we got our RFI last week then the applicant account had an additional button for confirming additional docs have been attached. 

Originally from brisbane but going to try Perth as we've 2 dogs and 3 kids and don't think they'd cope well in the heat in brisbane. We were there Xmas 2018 and we couldn't do anything outside the house during the day as the kids were miserable if it wasn't air conditioned or a swimming pool. 

Love Melbourne but don't want to pay a huge amount for a house. Brissie is great but the heat can be stifling if you're not a summer person. 

11 minutes ago, Bjv002 said:

No they do not, the 888 forms need to be witnessed by a solicitor but ID documents do not need to be certified just need to be high quality colour scans. 

Brilliant! Thank you

Does anyone know if the ID documents for the people that filled out the form  888 need to be certified if you're offshore and uploading docs online? Forms have already been witnessed 

39 minutes ago, Jimjam123 said:

Or maybe they're progressing those eligible for the 100 visa (since 207 is is 3 years ago).  Could be that they're requesting that evidence to make it easier to to segment the evidence submitted by all the applicants.

Saves them having to trawl through a multitude of evidence - We submitted over 400 pages combined across all the documents. 

Oh good point. Didn't even cross my mind. Fingers crossed that's it then! 

24 minutes ago, Jimjam123 said:

We also got a request just for 17-18, this after we'd submitted ample evidence to cover the period (tenancy agreements, joint bank accounts, joint car insurance, ATO tax returns listing each other as spouse, 12 stat decs, a 4 week holiday including all tickets/bookings, wedding invitations etc) We just re-wrote a new statement and submitted al the evidence again but titled it all 17-18 and then the name of the document. 

That's so strange. We had provided evidence for that period as well. Maybe they're trying to slow down the approvals or something. 

1 hour ago, kazronicus said:

Got an RFI today! (Original app 19/07/19). Oddly, the RFI is looking for financial evidence covering a very specific period of a year just after we got married... and it also covers things that we’ve kind of submitted already, like proof we own our house, do housework together etc. Strange! But we will do as requested and just upload more evidence, and hope that this means the application is processed quickly from now! So pleased it’s being looked at Anyone else had similar or could advise on what we might have missed?

We got very similar yesterday asking for evidence for 2017-2018 even though we've been married since 2013. Writing a statement and uploading even more docs over the weekend. Hopefully it's processed quickly then! Applied 15 July I think it was. 

So exciting for everyone getting their visas! 

We submitted ours mid July and it just says received. Is that normal until they request other info or it's approved? How does everyone know which embassy their application has been assigned to? Worried I've missed some really obvious stuff! 

Yes I'd say from their perspective if you're willing to commit fraud to centrelink you probably wouldn't have a problem doing it with immigration. 

Thanks everyone. I'd love to just leave everything behind and start again but then the thought of buying a whole house worth of stuff from scratch is also terrifying! I guess we'll just start with quotes and go from there. Thank you! 

@WayneMI'll be keeping an eye out for your shipping post update