Parental Visa

[TriciaP]

My daughter and her husband are starting their process of emigrating to Australia with their two children. They should not have any problem getting in but they would like me to join them as soon as is possible.

 

I would be very grateful if anyone is able to fill me in on the criteria required for me to gain entry on a parental visa and how long my daughter an her family need to be there before they can sponsor me.

 

In anticipation.

 

Regards

 

Tricia

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Tricia

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

You really need to start here:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/parent-outside.htm

 

and here:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/1129.pdf

 

Is your daughter your only child? If so, is the visa that she is applying for going to give her immediate Permanent Residence in Oz? She cannot sponsor you until she has lived in Oz for 2 years AND has PR, but if she is going out to Oz on a temp visa, the time spent there on that will count towards the 2 years. However, she MUST have PR in order to sponsor you, even if she only gets that the week before you apply.

 

The other thing you must not fall foul of is the Balance of Family Test, because they are very strict about that.

 

The only other potential trap is the Assurance of Support. Please see here:

 

http://www.gomatilda.com/news/article.cfm?articleid=391

 

and

 

http://www.gomatilda.com/news/article.cfm?articleid=214

 

If you can possibly afford it, go for the Contributory Parent visa. The ordinary Parent visa takes upwards of 10 years because only 1,000 a year are granted and there are over 12,000 poor souls in the official Queue for them. The risk with waiting that long is that their health might deteriorate during the wait, causing them to be refused a visa on medical grounds at the end of the day.

 

My mother has a Contributory Parent 143 visa which was granted 4 months ago. This visa is currently taking about 12 months to process from start to finish. Mostly that is 9 months of waiting without hearing a word from the POPC (Perth Offshore Parents Centre) which is incredibly frustrating. Then after about 9 months the Case Officer makes contact and starts helping you to tie up all the loose ends. The temporary CP 173 can be processed in about 10 months because you do not have to get involved with Centrelink at the temp stage. Centrelink is the dole office and why on earth they were put in charge of Assurances of Support is anyone's guess, frankly, but a Brainy Idea that was not!

 

However, there is no need to have a dreadful two or three year separation in the meantime. Please see here next:L

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/676/index.htm

 

They are pretty good about letting British Parents have 12 months at a time in Oz if you wheedle a bit. If you are over 70 or would be at any stage in this process then you would have to get your GP to complete a simple medical form, which is here:

 

http://www.uk.embassy.gov.au/lhlh/files/0024A%5fMedical%5fCertificate%5fPro%5fForma%20%5f%20Over%2070%2epdf

 

With my mother, I made simultaneous applications for her CP visa and for another long-stay tourist visa, so she spent most of the CP-processing period in Oz. You have to be outside Oz when the CP visa is granted, but any of Singapore/KL/Auckland/Fiji will do for this purpose and you need only go there for 5 days or so.

 

We didn't use a Migration Agent. Parent visas are pretty straightforward compared to the skilled ones, I reckon.

 

With regard to cost, if you were able to submit your application today, the costs would be as follows:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/990i/parent.htm

 

The big money is not paid until just before the visa is granted, and the whole of the 2nd Instalment is supposed to be a Contribution towards your future health care costs in Australia. (The medical care there is a million times better than here in my opinion. Aussie doctors have saved my mother's life twice.)

 

In addition, there is a Bond which is currently $10,000 for a single parent or $14,000 for a couple. That is held in a special account at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, it pays interest every six months and it is returned after 10 years if there have been no claims on Centrelink during that time.

 

Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme have nothing to do with Centrelink. There is a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement between Australia and the UK, which counts as medical insurance for the purposes of a tourist visa regardless of your age. You can see a Medicare GP for free whilst in Oz and you pay the same for your prescriptions to be filled as any other Ozzie. That is quite pricey compared to here, at about $29 per drug, but apparently even the Australian price is heavily subsidised.

 

If you need to go into hospital for anything, whether as an in-patient or an out-patient, the hospital treatment is completely free including any drugs. If you don't have private medical cover then you can only be treated for free in the public hospitals but the one in Fremantle, where they have saved Mum's life twice, is a million times better than Southampton General, near me, and it is not riddled with MRSA either.

 

I found that when I started researching the whole thing for Mum, the only way I could cope with the sheer volume of information was to print it all off and trap it in ring-binders, with divider cards to keep the sections separate and easy to find. There was simply too much to absorb from the screen.

 

Good luck and bellow if you have any queries,

 

Best wishes

 

Gill

[TriciaP]

Wow, that is a lot of very very helpful information. Thank you very much for all your trouble. It will take me a little while to get my head around it all but you have given me a great head start. I never thought I would get this much information so soon. Again thank you very much.

 

My daughter and her husband will be taking permanent residency. They spent a year in Manly in 2005 on a temporary working visa, during which time I visited them twice, so we know the life is wonderful in Oz. I will be 59 years old this year and so hoping it will all work out for when I retire at 60. I shall be leaving an adopted daughter who is married with children but who thinks it would be wonderful opportunity for me and I know once she has visited she will want to move over also.

 

Again thank you very much

 

Regards.

 

Tricia.

[Guest austibeach]

Gill, you are a marvel. Although I have done a fair bit of research into the CP visa, there were a few points you mentioned that I hadn't realised, so once again you have been of great help.

It will be a few years before we are actually in a position to finally make the move, but I firmly believe in thorough preparation, even so far in advance.

 

Eric.