lydia_schmidia

Yes we got our 189 grant notification from our agent. Good luck!

We're in a similar position - supposed to have entered by end of Feb 2021 to validate. We had flights booked for a validation trip at the end of this month but we're in the middle of trying to sell our house so we moved the flights to early Feb. Remains to be seen if that was a mistake! I am also a bit wary of relying on the generic response that they wouldn't seek to cancel the visa for missing the 'first entry' date . I have been looking on forums for anyone who has managed to make it out there recently after their first entry date but I have yet to see any (apart from one guy who'd had a waiver back in 2019 then moved in spring this year).

Sure, it's this one - I was looking at the leaving Australia section https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/ x

Hmm, just to link back to the DHA page, which says the following; "You are considered ordinarily resident in a country other than Australia if international movement records show that you’ve spent more time outside Australia than inside for the last 12 to 24 months. You do not need to carry a paper record of your movements with you. If required, Australian Border Force officers at airports can check your movement records in Departmental systems. If you have not spent more time outside Australia than inside for the last 12 to 24 months, but still consider yourself to be ordinarily resident in another country, you can submit a request for a travel exemption." Of course I suppose what they say and what people's actual experiences are might be different!

It's the uncertainty more than anything isn't it. It's hard to make contingency plans where there are so many different factors. We are just having to think of alternative plans for every single scenario, e.g renting out the house instead of selling, putting off the move for another year, changing dates of flights which could potentially cause issues with work. We have until end of Feb to validate ours but if this pregnancy goes well we will have a newborn at the end of Jan so really cannot leave it that long! We are prepared to pay for the quarantine, think it's just going to have to be added to the long and ever increasing list of expenses! We are really fortunate though that we can stay with my partner's sister when we first move so we will have some time to find somewhere maybe to rent initially and build back up some of the funds we might lose with the exchange rate or whatever. I hope you get some interest in your house soon. I'm guessing renting it out isn't really an option for you? X

I feel you, it's stressing me out too! We are also not in a position to sell our house or quit our jobs this year but just need to validate the visas. I'm not sure about the rules for partner visas or which one you have? Assuming you have PR you might be in the same position as us, where as long as you are not usually resident in Australia you can leave without needing to apply for exemption. I've done a bit of digging and I think they can tell where you've been from international travel records, so while it's probably a good idea to take documents showing you don't live in Australia they probably have their own ways of checking it too. I'm going to contact our migration agent in the next few weeks and see if he can give us a definite answer about whether we'd be able to just do a validation trip. There's so much hanging on this and we really don't want to mess it up accidentally! An absolute last resort desperate option could maybe be to fly out, validate visa and fly straight back without leaving the airport but not sure if that's even allowed. And would be horrific

That's a good point, we're both very lucky that we can work from home so that shouldn't be a problem. We did check this with our employers before we booked flights. They aren't yet aware we have visas but we're prepared to tell them if they query why we're able to go in the first place. We might even ask if they'd let us do some work from hotel quarantine because I think we will go out of our minds without something to focus on for 2 weeks!

Phew! Taking 4 weeks off work is a lot more complicated for us than 3 so it would be great if we didn't have to do that. Fingers crossed we're good to go then!

I've just looked on the DHA website and it says; "Read the information below before you submit your enquiry If you meet the following criteria you do not need to apply for an exemption: people ordinarily resident in a country other than Australia people whose travel is associated with essential work at offshore facilities people engaged in the day to day conduct of outbound and inbound freight people travelling on official Government business (including members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF)) airline and maritime crew and associated safety workers Exemptions will be assessed on a case-by-case basis for those who meet the criteria listed below." So hopefully we might not actually need the exemption? I am just a bit confused about how they know you are not ordinarily resident at the border. I suppose they must have their means.

There's no way we'd get another 189 now as well, we managed to get an invite just in time with 75 points before they really reduced invite numbers. Our plan C/D/whatever could possibly be for my partner to travel if they reopen borders before end of Feb, validate his visa and then go through the partner visa process for me. But that is far from ideal! I wish we were ready to move right now but that's out of the question unfortunately. I really hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for you! Our problem feels quite small compared to the planning it must take to arrange a move at the moment. Xx

Ok thank you, think I will need to look into it more and maybe contact the migration agent we used. If that is the case though maybe they might be a bit less likely to cancel our visa (), although I guess if they really want to curb migration that would be an easy way to do it. A definite extension to first entry date would be really useful, but hey ho, I always knew we would be at the whim of whatever the govt decides. At least our flights can be moved to anytime within 2 years so that's not really an issue.

Oh really? I thought that if you weren't normally resident you could still leave, but not sure how you would prove that, or whether they just know from whatever they have on record

Hi, Thanks for the response! Yes the plan is to go and quarantine, then stay with my partner's sister for a week in Brisbane then head back to the UK (and probably quarantine again, but at least it should be in our house). Not sure if this is a realistic plan but we're just so keen to get the visa validated. We really don't want to risk losing it as we likely wouldn't get another one at this point. So hard to know what the best thing to do is, I'm sure plenty of others are in the same position. Another complication is the fact that I'm pregnant so flying will be a risk any later than Mid-October (and is an increased risk even before then with Covid added in). I guess if we end up not being able to travel we will just have to suck it up and hope for the best that we still have a visa in a year or so.

Hi all, Wondering if anyone could answer my question. We have flights booked for end of October to hopefully fly over and validate our PR visas. (We don't really want to leave it up to chance whether our visas will get cancelled if we don't make the first entry date). We are prepared to quarantine, and also prepared to pay if we need to. However I know that if flights were booked before 17 June we might not need to pay any charges. We have a flexible flight ticket and are now looking to potentially change our travel dates to September for some personal reasons. Does anyone know if we would end up being charged for quarantine if we change the dates of a flexible ticket that was originally booked before 17 June? Really struggling to find any info! Thanks so much

Hi! Same has happened to us. We submitted our application on 21 March and have yet to hear anything (189 visa, my partner is a software developer). Our agent says that apparently they are about 6 months behind with allocating COs so we're trying our best to wait patiently...We didn't submit all of the required documentation immediately though, we held off getting medicals and police checks just in case of big delays and I'm quite glad we did now!