Parent visa application timelines (143 & 173)

[Marisawright]

7 hours ago, LindaH27 said:

Yes I do understand that but medical insurers are in business for a profit! 

In the US yes, but in Australia there are already not-for-profit health funds.  It doesn't stop the fees going up, simply because health care is becoming so expensive, especially in old age when there are so many fancy procedures available now. 

I have often thought your idea would be the solution--after all, they had a visa like that before, which Ramot was on. But Ramot has mentioned that she knew several others on the same visa, who had to go home eventually because they couldn't afford it.   I can see that happening to a lot of parents - I think many of us are overly optimistic about how long our money will last when we first retire!  -- and the government would be afraid of the bad publicity from deporting ancient parents who can't pay their health insurance any more.

[Marisawright]

3 hours ago, AJM22 said:

 

"There needs to be a program for people who just want to be part of society."

Why?

[ramot]

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

In the US yes, but in Australia there are already not-for-profit health funds.  It doesn't stop the fees going up, simply because health care is becoming so expensive, especially in old age when there are so many fancy procedures available now. 

I have often thought your idea would be the solution--after all, they had a visa like that before, which Ramot was on. But Ramot has mentioned that she knew several others on the same visa, who had to go home eventually because they couldn't afford it.   I can see that happening to a lot of parents - I think many of us are overly optimistic about how long our money will last when we first retire!  -- and the government would be afraid of the bad publicity from deporting ancient parents who can't pay their health insurance any more.

We were on the long term temporary  retirement visa, renewed every 10 years. The conditions of the visa were we had to be self funded, and have health insurance with no access at all to Medicare. Even if you came from the UK there is no reciprocal cover on this visa. . Your Medicare card is requested when you go to a Dr. hospital etc. and if you don’t have one your health insurance is checked. I’m sure if you were having a heart attack you would be looked after, but you would be in breach of your visa conditions and I assume your visa canceled? and you would have to leave.I doubt there would have been any sympathy for any of us, we knew the conditions of our visa, and it was our decision to move here. If you couldn’t afford to live here any more you had to leave, whether you were parents or not.

The cost of health insurance was expensive, from memory  $ 11,000 annually and that was 3 years ago. It went up every year with a 42% increase one year!! The insurance companies know that to stay on our visas we had to pay up to stay in the country.

I question the reality of imposing any similar conditions on anyone who comes here who has PR. 

The other point is, with no disrespect to anyone, parents want to come here from many countries, not just the UK, with different financial backgrounds. From memory there was a list of the breakdown of the number of applications from countries?

Just in case posters don’t know, the 410 temporary retirement visa closed to new applicants in 2005, and the 405 temporary investor retirement visa closed to new applicants in 2018?

Edited July 18, 2021 by ramot

[Marisawright]

48 minutes ago, ramot said:

We were on the long term temporary  retirement visa, renewed every 10 years. The conditions of the visa were we had to be self funded, and have health insurance with no access at all to Medicare. Even if you came from the UK there is no reciprocal cover on this visa. . Your Medicare card is requested when you go to a Dr. hospital etc. and if you don’t have one your health insurance is checked. I’m sure if you were having a heart attack you would be looked after, but you would be in breach of your visa conditions and I assume your visa canceled? and you would have to leave.I doubt there would have been any sympathy for any of us, we knew the conditions of our visa, and it was our decision to move here. If you couldn’t afford to live here any more you had to leave, whether you were parents or not.

I can believe independent retirees wouldn't get much sympathy but where parents are involved, I'm not so sure. 

I'm sure you've seen those tear-jerking newspaper articles from time to time (they have been shared here sometimes), about some poor granny who is being deported and her loving family are wailing about how unjust it is for her to be sent home.  Never mind that she's in Australia on an over-stayed visitor visa or whatever, she's our granny so we shouldn't have to worry about silly details like visas, we're entitled to have her with us.  It's ridiculous, because I'm sure the family and the granny were well aware they were doing the wrong thing, but they're relying on pulling people's heart strings to force the government to make an exception just for them.  I think that's the kind of bad publicity the government is afraid of.   

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Marisawright

[Marisawright]

1 hour ago, ramot said:

We were on the long term temporary  retirement visa, renewed every 10 years.....The cost of health insurance was expensive, from memory  $ 11,000 annually and that was 3 years ago. It went up every year with a 42% increase one year!! The insurance companies know that to stay on our visas we had to pay up to stay in the country.....

I question the reality of imposing any similar conditions on anyone who comes here who has PR. 

I'm not suggesting they should impose similar conditions on anyone with PR.  PR means you get to stay permanently so you can't award PR and then impose conditions.

My suggestion is, don't give parents PR.   Revive the 410 visa and let parents come on that visa.  That way, the government could open the floodgates to parents who can afford it, because they won't be a burden on the state. 

The problem would be, as I said, that some parents would end up having to go home at some point due to finances, as your friends did.   Many would leave quietly--but I'm sure there would be a rise in those tear-jerking newspaper articles where a family is wailing about granny being forced to leave her grandkids because of a heartless government.  Never mind that they all knew the deal when they got the visa,  they're relying on pulling on the heartstrings to try to force a concession from the government.  And I think that's what the government is fearful of.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Marisawright

[ramot]

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

I'm not suggesting they should impose similar conditions on anyone with PR.  PR means you get to stay permanently so you can't award PR and then impose conditions.

My suggestion is, don't give parents PR.   Revive the 410 visa and let parents come on that visa.  That way, the government could open the floodgates to parents who can afford it, because they won't be a burden on the state. 

The problem would be, as I said, that some parents would end up having to go home at some point due to finances, as your friends did.   Many would leave quietly--but I'm sure there would be a rise in those tear-jerking newspaper articles where a family is wailing about granny being forced to leave her grandkids because of a heartless government.  Never mind that they all knew the deal when they got the visa,  they're relying on pulling on the heartstrings to try to force a concession from the government.  And I think that's what the government is fearful of.

Sorry Marisa I was responding to the suggestion made by LindaH27

 ‘one of the solutions could possibly be to make all parent visas dependent on having private health insurance for the rest of their lives’  

I felt that it would be unrealistic to impose conditions on a permanent visa.

I assume the government must have had valid reasons to end the 410 visa? and introduce the 405 investor retirement visa instead and then end that one in 2018. You had to be pretty wealthy to afford the 405.

Goodness knows how the government will resolve the wait for parent visas, now that the wait has blown out of all proportion for everyone, I think the apparently misleading information about the length of waiting time on a government website for parent visas, has caused much distress. 

[Marisawright]

14 minutes ago, ramot said:

Sorry Marisa I was responding to the suggestion made by LindaH27

 ‘one of the solutions could possibly be to make all parent visas dependent on having private health insurance for the rest of their lives’  

Ah yes, I see what you mean.  I agree it's probably  unconstitutional or illegal (or something) to give someone permanent residency and then impose conditions.  Apart from anything else, what happens when they become citizens?  

I think I assumed that the parent visas wouldn't be PR visas in that case, they'd have to be in a different category that allowed conditions and never led to citizenship.   I would love to know why the government decided to get rid of the 410 visa because it seems like a sensible option, but I guess they're unlikely to tell us!

[ramot]

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

Ah yes, I see what you mean.  I agree it's probably  unconstitutional or illegal (or something) to give someone permanent residency and then impose conditions.  Apart from anything else, what happens when they become citizens?  

I think I assumed that the parent visas wouldn't be PR visas in that case, they'd have to be in a different category that allowed conditions and never led to citizenship.   I would love to know why the government decided to get rid of the 410 visa because it seems like a sensible option, but I guess they're unlikely to tell us!

There were many rumours of rorts circulating. 

[LindaH27]

2 hours ago, ramot said:

There were many rumours of rorts circulating. 

This is a good explanation of 405 and 410 visas which were always meant to be temporary
 

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/retirement-visa-holders

[ramot]

44 minutes ago, LindaH27 said:

This is a good explanation of 405 and 410 visas which were always meant to be temporary
 

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/retirement-visa-holders

Obviously we knew when we applied for our 410 visa in 2002 exactly what the conditions were. We knew it was a long term temporary visa, that we had to be self funded, no access to Medicare, have health insurance, had to apply for FIRB to buy a house, etc, we had done our homework. The only thing that changed since we came was that originally the visa was renewed every 2 years, then changed to 4 years, before changed to 10 year validity. The renewal of the 410 was very easy and simple. 

The above although interesting is irrelevant as the visa was stopped to new applicants 16 years ago, and many of the statistics are very out of date. 

The rorts that were circulating were nothing to do with anything mentioned in the above.

[LindaH27]

1 minute ago, ramot said:

Obviously we knew when we applied for our 410 visa in 2002 exactly what the conditions were. We knew it was a long term temporary visa, that we had to be self funded, no access to Medicare, have health insurance, had to apply for FIRB to buy a house, etc, we had done our homework. The only thing that changed since we came was that originally the visa was renewed every 2 years, then changed to 4 years, before changed to 10 year validity. The renewal of the 410 was very easy and simple. 

The above although interesting is irrelevant as the visa was stopped to new applicants 16 years ago, and many of the statistics are very out of date. 

The rorts that were circulating were nothing to do with anything mentioned in the above.

I do find it slightly amusing that older people on retirement visas were rorting !! 

[ramot]

1 minute ago, LindaH27 said:

I do find it slightly amusing that older people on retirement visas were rorting !! 

Please don’t forget many nationalities came on the 410 visa.

[Marisawright]

Just now, LindaH27 said:

I do find it slightly amusing that older people on retirement visas were rorting !! 

Older people are not immune to being devious.

I think that's why I was saying, if you were going to make parent visas conditional on holding private health insurance, you'd have to make them like the 410, because you'd need some mechanism for a regular check on their status.  One, to make sure they were maintaining their cover and two, to make sure they were still financial enough to do so for the next 10 years.  

[LindaH27]

 

14 minutes ago, ramot said:

Please don’t forget many nationalities came on the 410 visa.

I didn’t suggest rorting was nationality dependant  - I certainly wouldn’t discriminate in that way  - rorting happens all over.  

[LindaH27]

24 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Older people are not immune to being devious.

I think that's why I was saying, if you were going to make parent visas conditional on holding private health insurance, you'd have to make them like the 410, because you'd need some mechanism for a regular check on their status.  One, to make sure they were maintaining their cover and two, to make sure they were still financial enough to do so for the next 10 years.  

Yes as I said there would be an annual demand for parents on the visa to pay for their government private health insurance. If people are prepared to pay for 10 years private health insurance on 870 visa then  pay for another 10-12 years cover instead of large 2nd Vac (which they would be asked to invest at the start  to provide the fees) that’s 20-22 years cover which would see quite a lot of older parents through ! 
I’m not saying it’s the answer I’m saying it’s possibly something the govt could look into ? 
 

And certainly getting rid of 804 would save them a lot of money. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by LindaH27

[Marisawright]

53 minutes ago, LindaH27 said:

Yes as I said there would be an annual demand for parents on the visa to pay for their government private health insurance.

...but that involves a lot of extra administration every single year.  

[LindaH27]

 Would offer more employment opportunities to centrelink staff perhaps  - or whoever they used to use for 405 and410 visas and who subsequently possibly lost their jobs? 

[Marisawright]

4 minutes ago, LindaH27 said:

 Would offer more employment opportunities to centrelink staff perhaps  - or whoever they used to use for 405 and410 visas and who subsequently possibly lost their jobs? 

The government is always happy to find opportunities to cut staff.

[ramot]

26 minutes ago, LindaH27 said:

 Would offer more employment opportunities to centrelink staff perhaps  - or whoever they used to use for 405 and410 visas and who subsequently possibly lost their jobs? 

I think that the difference is that the number of people on the parent visa will vastly outnumber how many people were here on the 410 visa pre 2005, and the 405 visa holders that came. Locally sadly I knew a fair few on both retirement visas who decided they couldn’t afford to stay on, but as far as I know it was their decision to leave.  I never heard of anyone locally who was contacted and told they had to leave, but possibly it did happen? 
So sad though for some of them when they had to make that decision, as several had come here from Africa, but couldn’t return there, so went to the UK, knowing no one there. 

As someone previously mentioned that’s the harsh reality of being on a temporary visa.

[MillieB]

Has anyone been contacted to provide further information - medical, police checks etc?  Is it me or does everything seemed to have stopped after the few grants at the start of the visa year?  

Edited July 29, 2021 by MillieB

[LindaH27]

6 hours ago, MillieB said:

Has anyone been contacted to provide further information - medical, police checks etc?  Is it me or does everything seemed to have stopped after the few grants at the start of the visa year?  

I believe there are still people who paid AOS and provided police and medical checks in May 2020 who are still waiting for their visa to be granted! They always release more for processing from the queue than places are actually available as they know some will be refused/ withdrawn etc. The refusal rate has been around 3% for a few years but has recently increased to 18% in last couple of years!! 

[MillieB]

33 minutes ago, LindaH27 said:

I believe there are still people who paid AOS and provided police and medical checks in May 2020 who are still waiting for their visa to be granted! They always release more for processing from the queue than places are actually available as they know some will be refused/ withdrawn etc. The refusal rate has been around 3% for a few years but has recently increased to 18% in last couple of years!! 

Thanks for the reply, Linda. Wow! Still waiting for visa grants from May 2020 - slower  than a snails pace. 

 I wonder if the refusal rate increasing is due to the length of time waiting for visa processing and applicants getting older?   The older we get the more chance of health conditions developing, resulting in possible medical failure. 

[LindaH27]

4 minutes ago, MillieB said:

Thanks for the reply, Linda. Wow! Still waiting for visa grants from May 2020 - slower  than a snails pace. 

 I wonder if the refusal rate increasing is due to the length of time waiting for visa processing and applicants getting older?   The older we get the more chance of health conditions developing, resulting in possible medical failure. 

I’ve read that it’s more likely to do with failing the medicals, and also the fact that dependants have to be under 23 at time at the time of decision. Given the length of wait time some dependants are now too old. Apparently there are two options in that case. They all withdraw the application or just the dependant withdraws and allows the parents to proceed with the grant. Not sure where that then leaves the “dependant”

As far as medicals  are concerned it’s not always  the “condition”. It’s sometimes the case that the potential costs of treating that condition ( medicines, ops, care, equipment etc) would cost the Australian tax payer too much via Medicare so any costs over $49000 over five years could also lead to a refusal.

They do check everything so you have to pass the police check too. If things haven’t been declared in the application but come to light they would check it out,  or maybe they  overstayed on a visitor visa at some point etc etc etc!! All sorts of reasons including fraud I think.  Obviously they are really checking things now. 

[Jan.tt]

Has anyone who had there Visa 143 acknowledged in June 2016 been contacted yet by WA Parents to have a medical and Police check?

 

[LindaH27]

The senate enquiry into parent visas report due on 10th August has been extended to 25 November 2021 - probably because of the Covid outbreaks they currently have.