ButterflyLadybug

5 hours ago, rammygirl said:

I would imagine his birth certificate will be required to prove his citizenship. You can start the application online then once complete it will ask you to upload evidence so you know exactly what is required. At that stage you can save the application until you gather the evidence to upload before final submission. 

Oh perfect, thank you for the information. I might just do that and see what we actually need

Looking at applying for citizenship for my two children who's father is an Australian citizen, we're all currently in the UK. 

What sort of evidence do I need to send ? My husband has a British passport and driving licence which state he was born in Australia but unfortunately he no longer has his birth certificate. Wondering if we need to order him a new one before we start the applications

3 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

A consultation with Paul Hand helped me avoid some potential pitfalls and to front load the evidence with the kind of things that are not strictly mandatory, but typically asked for.

Oh great thank you, I just looked up Paul Hand and his price for a consultation seems really reasonable of he helped you get through the visa process so fast. Will definitely consider contacting him when we get to that stage. 

1 minute ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

5 weeks.  4 of which was me being slack about booking the medical.

 

Oh wow, that's so much faster than I thought it would be. Thank you for the information. 

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

It's not illegal to arrive in Australia on a visitor visa with the intention of applying for a partner visa.  The question Immigration will be asking is, what if your partner visa is rejected?  Do you look like the kind of person who'll stay in Australia regardless, illegally?   It's up to the officer on the day to decide if you're likely to overstay and if so, you'll be refused entry.  However from what agents say, the risk is very small these days. 

More of an issue is, have you looked into the pros and cons of applying onshore?   It's more of a hassle than applying offshore.

If you apply now, assuming you're in the UK, you'll get your partner visa within 2 or 3 months (UK applications are faster than most).  Then you'll have about a year to make the move (the deadline will be stated on your visa).  If you're not ready to make the final move within that time, all you have to do is pop over for a holiday, even for just a week.  That's enough to "activate" the visa, then you have almost 5 years to make your final move.  Plenty of flexibility when it comes to selling your house, really.

Contrast that with the onshore version.  You'll arrive on the tourist visa, then apply for the partner visa.  You can't, obviously, work on the tourist visa. Once the tourist visa expires, you'll get a bridging visa. You can't work on that either.  The processing time is typically longer than for offshore visas and you're in limbo until  it's approved.  

Thank you for that information. I didn't realise that the visa could come through so fast so that's great to know. I also didn't realise you had 5 years to make the move once the visa is activated so that certainly gives us a lot more flexibility than I thought we'd have. 

I have no plans to work once we move over as my children are home educated so whichever visa I'm on should be fine. I think I need to do a bit more research and figure out what would be the best way to go about the move. 

Am right on thinking I can apply for Citizenship after 4 years with only 1 year of that having to be a permanent resident visa ? So if I do go over on a evisitor that time would be included before my partner visa has come through ? 

I do think it would be highly unlikely for my visa to be denied as we have been together for 16, own a house together, are in a civil partnership and both in good health with no criminal records. 

Me and my partner were planning on applying for a 309/100 visa while still in the UK but I've just discovered that it's possible for me to travel to Australia and apply for a partner visa while there. I just have a few questions if anyone can answer them. 

When I arrive with a one way ticket can I disclose that I intend to apply for a partner visa before my evisitor runs out or would that be against the terms on the visa ? Basically do I need to say I intend to return to the UK. 

The evisitor option obviously gives us more flexibility around when we can leave which I think would beneficial when it comes to selling our house. 

Thank you for any help  

1 hour ago, calNgary said:

These are some of the reasons we looked into the move from the UK to Aus (although neither of us were citizens). Hubby had spent 12 mths travelling around here and thought QLD would be better suited to our family, as we too liked the outdoors particularly water sports, fishing etc and the weather in the North West was pretty dire. Now 14 years on since we moved and QLD certainly ticked those boxes for us.

By fluke we managed a 2 week visit prior to moving and this is how hubby secured work, so although difficult for you at the moment due to the closed borders, if you can finance it ,that may be the way to go in the future if your hubby really wants to secure a job prior to the move.Getting responses from emails seems to be near impossible for many job seekers unfortunately.

 Cal x

Queensland is somewhere we're considering, My partner was actually born in Brisbane and lived there until he was 6 before moving over to the UK. We will definitely be visiting before we make the move, we're hoping to do 2 weeks in Perth and 2 in Brisbane when it's safe to do so. One thing we are considering doing is just having my partner go over by himself and finding a job and setting everything up for us before I bring the kids over. We're just going to see how it goes really. Thank you for your reply

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

I think children can have a great lifestyle in Australia but I can never understand why people say they'll have better opportunities.  Australia's population is so small compared to the UK, why would anyone expect better opportunities?

Australia used to be seen as "the land of opportunity", but that was only because the country was so short of workers.  When I migrated over 30 years ago, I was offered 3 jobs in as many weeks.  These days, the job market is no better or worse than the UK.  It takes just as long to find a job in Australia as it does in the UK, and pre-Covid, the unemployment rate was much the same.  Salaries for some jobs are higher than in the UK, but some occupations are lower-paid, especially in the corporate sector. 

Your husband is in IT so he will do well if you decide to make the move.  For your children, it will depend entirely on what they grow up wanting to do with their lives, and how Australia develops in the meantime - but it will always be a small pond compared to Britain. 

 

I can clarify a little. My partner will likely have a higher income in Australia which we believe will open up more opportunities for us a family, such as more experiences, not necessarily more future prospects for our kids.  I also believe that the education system in Australia aligns more with what we want for our children, currently we home educate them as the school system here is awful and not something we want them to have to endure. If my partner is earning more we will have access to private education. 

The lifestyle is also something that appeals to us, the weather here is often pretty awful, our children love being outdoors though, we're out in all weather for multiple hours a day. Here we find it hard to meet people as most parents don't seem to take their children out when the weather is bad. I feel like because the lifestyle is more outdoorsy in Australia it would suit us better. 

Having said all this, even if Australia was completely the same as the UK in terms of opportunities and lifestyle, with my partner being a citizen of Australia and my children being eligible by decent why not give it try. Australia is completely different to the UK, we would have the opportunity to see wildlife we can never see here and to experience a complete different climate and landscape. If we don't like it we can always move back. 

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Unless his skills are in very high demand , your chances of getting a job offer while you’re still in the UK are extremely slim.

i would say if that’s your goal then you need ratification before he even starts looking for jobs

We will definitely look into ratification closer to when we want to move. If my partner doesn't manage to get a job we will just stay in England. We don't mind living here but we just felt given my partner's citizenship and the possibility of our children have a better lifestyle and more opportunities we would give it a try

6 hours ago, Paul1Perth said:

If you sit and think about it long enough you just come to the conclusion you can't afford to do it. Best just to do it.

Haha I hear you and if it were just me and my partner we would move out straight away but with two young children it's not something we want to rush into

6 hours ago, Marisawright said:

With one breadwinner, you don't want to be in the position of fruitlessly applying for jobs for a month or so, then applying for ratification, then waiting another x months for the ratification before he can get a job.  

I assume you're thinking of delaying because you don't want to pay an annual subscription.   However, I notice Paul said he had his ratified by the UWA.   That would be worth looking into now, and wouldn't need an annual subscription.

We wouldn't be moving unless my partner already had a job offer so it taking a while isn't really an issue for us. We have no real issue paying a subscription fee at all, especially if it would help him to get a job faster and with less effort. I just thought that a another poster had suggested ratification wasn't necessary, maybe I miss understood the post we will definitely look into UWW though. Thank you for your reply

On 16/07/2021 at 04:22, Paul1Perth said:

I think there's an Australian Computer Society, or something similar, that can ratify or say what it's equivalent to. I never bothered joining as they are just another mob that want a yearly subscription for nothing. Once you have a job you don't need them.

I suppose we could just see if he manages to get a job or not and if his degree not being ratified becomes an issue we can do it then. Thanks for your reply

On 16/07/2021 at 04:27, Paul1Perth said:

If you really want to come to Aus I wouldn't wait. I would get over as soon as possible, start the ball rolling. When things open up here there will be a massive demand. If you get over asap there's a huge demand right now. Good salaries because of shortage of trained people.

If you're anything like us and most of our friends that emigrated everyone says they wished they'd done it earlier. If you can survive in the UK on one salary you can do it here.

The unemployment figures for WA came out yesterday, 4.5%, lowest for years.

I think we'll be keeping an eye on the situation over there and see how everything goes. We aren't apposed to going over sooner we just need to make sure that we can afford to do it. Thank you for your reply

1 hour ago, NicF said:

We live on one part time salary with two almost grown up kids (who seem to think working for money is something other people do ) and have quite a comfortable lifestyle.  However we have no mortgage, a decent amount of savings and while my OH has no income he is retired and we could access his super if necessary.  I would agree with the above unless you are likely to have enough funds to bring with you to buy a house outright.

Unfortunately we will definitely be paying rent and then hopefully a mortgage as we are still a very young family and only just in the process of buying our first house now in the UK.  Thanks for the reply, it gives me hope we'll be able to live on part time jobs there in future

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

One thing to bear in mind is that it can take a year just to get the partner visa approved, so allow plenty of time for that. 

I would worry about any young family living on one salary in Australia.   If you are coping at the moment, then I'd stick it out in the UK for another two or three years, so he'll have more chance of getting a high-paid role once he gets to Australia. 

Our plan is to wait until my partner has 3 years experience to start the process so I would guess he would have somewhere around 3-5 years experience by the time we make the move. He also has 4 years experience being a web developer/ server admin but I'm not sure if that would be taken I to consideration as he wants to continue on with being a software developer. Thank you for your reply

2 hours ago, Paul1Perth said:

Does he have a degree? Might seem a bit strange as I know a lot of good software engineers are self taught with sometimes no formal qualifications. However, you probably wouldn't get an interview with the big companies here without a degree.

One of the best things I did was get my Birmingham University degree ratified by UWA. They gave me a nice letter and a better looking certificate than my Birmingham one. Drop the UWA one out in an interview and it was like when do you want to start.

A lot of people working from home at the moment. I think things have changed for good.

He has a computer science degree. I'll have to look into ratification, it wasn't something I was even aware of until now but sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the info

1 hour ago, Gothnet said:

Oh also, as someone looking to buy a house after arrival, my Bank (ANZ) advised me that if I wanted a mortgage I would be looking at three months employment before they would lend, unless the job was a continuation of one I had over here.

If you have the money to buy outright, I’ve been told that takes about a month.

Thank you for your reply, some really useful information there. I'll definitely have a look at some job adverts.

My partner is currently working as a software developer and has one year experience. We are hoping to move our family of 4 over to Perth as soon as we can really. We are wondering how much experience my partner should have before we start to make the move. My partner would need make enough to support the whole family as our children are currently home educated but we would be willing to live away from the city and have my partner commute to make accommodation cheaper. 

Also if anyone knows, would it be possible to buy a house immediately if we had funds from a house sold in the UK ? My partner is an Australian citizen but I would be on a partner visa.

Thanks for any help