rtritudr

My child passport was issued the day before I posted the above message. However, I did send an enquiry to the Passport Office which may or may not have expedited the process. Other people are reporting getting their child passports after three months.

A landlord asking for 6 months upfront payment may not be allowed, however, a tenant offering to pay 6 months upfront because of the lack of reference that might otherwise cause the landlord to overlook their application is certainly allowed.

As long as you are eligible for an ESTA then you can use that instead of a visa. However, if your ESTA application is denied then you will have to get a visa which requires an in-person interview.

Just a single data point, I put in a straightforward child passport renewal from abroad at the end of August, I still haven't received anything from the consulate.

A citizenship certificate is only required in some cases, e.g., when neither parent is an Australian citizen but one of them has PR. If a child is born in Australia with an Australian citizen parent, then they won't need their own citizenship certificate to apply for an Australian passport. You only need to supply their birth certificate plus one parent's proof of Australian citizenship.

Does your country have an embassy in Australia? If it does then I think you're not eligible for the COI: A non-Australian/non-British citizen in Australia whose government does not have a presence in Australia but who has an urgent need to travel for compassionate circumstances and who can show that his/her government cannot provide a travel document in time to meet his/her travel needs.

PCR tests are free for international arrivals. RAT tests on the other hand are only free to certain categories of people.

I did a PCR test last week in Sydney and there was just one car ahead of me. So it's nothing like December/January.

Since the March 2020 closure of international borders, the 8503 condition has been routinely waived for those onshore (if you apply). Of course this may change in future but that appears to still be the current state.

With RAT, you don't go to a clinic at all, instead you obtain an RAT kit from a chemist/pharmacy. However, whether you choose PCR or RAT, you'll be hitting capacity constraints. That means insane queueing for PCR and most shops being out-of-stock with RAT kits. With 21,000 people testing positive today in NSW alone, there is tremendous demand for PCR and RAT testing which the suppliers simply can't keep up with.

I got mine at a drive-through near the airport: 4Cyte Pathology Mascot Address: 5-11 Ewan St, Mascot NSW 2020

No, all results are automatically reported to NSW Health.

Masks are mandatory on all flights to Australia.

You're supposed to do the visa application first, then the exemption application with the TRN to link the two. Doing it the wrong way may add unnecessary delays to your visa approval, or in the worst case cause it to be put on hold indefinitely (some were waiting for over a year for their visa application).

Which can't happen if the border to WA is closed.

If you supplied your visa TRNs correctly then you don't need to do anything else.

Unless you have an exemption, a 651 visa per se does not qualify you to enter Australia, you'll be refused boarding.

I don't think the reason matters for an inbound exemption, as long as you qualify as a family member. Thankfully outbound exemptions are no longer applicable. Of course, if you don't qualify automatically for an exemption (e.g., not a family member or parent of an Australian citizen/permanent resident), then the reason will be the sole criterion for assessing your application and it becomes crucial.

Exactly. Get in and if the current policies stay in place you don't even have to go offshore for the 101 to be approved.

The intention is let such children quarantine at home, and therefore they should not take up any hotel quarantine space which is extremely limited (210 per week in Sydney). However, you are at the mercy of your airline but since it's Qantas, hopefully they should understand the rules better than a foreign airline. https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/COVID-19/COVID-19-vaccinations#fully-vaccinated https://www.health.gov.au/news/returning-australian-children Returning to Australia If you’re returning to the ACT, NSW or Victoria with a child 12 to 17 years old who isn’t fully vaccinated, they must undertake a PCR test within 24 hours of arriving and quarantine at home for 7 days. They must take a second PCR test on day 5 of their isolation period.

Assuming it remains the same as the current exemption process, you first apply for your visa, then you apply for the exemption immediately with your visa application TRN so that the two applications are linked. Once your exemption comes through then the visa will be approved.

What about lodging the returns now, pay the Medicare surcharge, and then filing an amendment once the MES comes through?

With children you just rock up to your GP and they will enter the information into the government system. I'd imagine it would work in a similar way with Covid vaccines, as long as the ones you had have been approved in Australia.

Please note that the weekly inbound passenger numbers have been reduced in half again down to just 750 per week. https://simpleflying.com/australian-state-cut-international-arrivals/ https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-to-halve-number-of-international-arrivals-until-october-20210831-p58nmq.html

The caps were reduced because of the recent Delta outbreak in Australia. As the situation has only worsened since then, I doubt they're going to restore the capacity any time soon.