Overland with Kids

Since our last update, we had paid a total £3,125 GBP or $6,250 AUD toward Andrew’s Australian Sponsored Skilled Visa application. Since this time, Andrew was granted WA State Sponsorship (4th November) at an additional cost of £538.20 or $968.02 AUD and we could now finally apply for the long-awaited visa. We lodged this immediately at an additional cost of £1,404.37 or $2,525 AUD but were shocked to be immediately told that Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) had changed the priority processing requirements and we were now priority 5 (low).  The bottom line being that the visa will now take another 2 years!!!! to process.

We immediately thought there must have been a wording error made in the email sent us by our consultant and re-checked this with him. But no - no error - apparently DIAC changed it’s processing policy back in October this year and we were unaware of this.

Given that we have now spent a ludicrously huge amount of money - a total of £5,067.57 GBP or $9,743.02 AUD to-date and began this process back in July/August 2008 - we feel deflated at the amount of money spent and disappointed about the wait time. We feel it’s very unfair.  Some warning would have been nice.

So, the whole process looks like a total 3-year processing time from start to finish at present. We fail to see how this makes sense for anyone making serious plans and why DIAC are allowed to take such large amounts of hard-earned and hard-saved money, then moving the processing priority goal posts. Why aren’t we benefiting from the interest lost on this amount? And why does WA have a skill demand that cannot now be met for another 2-years? How can they foresee such skills demand when they say it’s needed now and grant the sponsorship requirement only for DIAC to then refuse to process. Makes no sense at all. We hope to see some further changes that may rectify this situation for us.

Meantime, this has left us in a bit of a quandary as it has buggered our plans a bit. Due to the children’s ages and future schooling needs, we are unable to wait and delay our travel plans so we’re just going to go ahead without. Maybe, the fact that we will hopefully have reached Australia and visited before our visas might be finally granted (if they are!) will be a benefit to us as well as the DIAC visa process. Who knows?

And, for anyone thinking about doing similar - beware! Before parting with any hard-earned cash, understand as much as possible about what’s currently happening with Demand List priorities, Australian Sponsorship processing and DIAC changes. Else, like us, it could turn into a hugely expensive and legnthy process! We’d be interested to see how others are dealing with such news or whether we’re just plain stupid (lambs to the slaughter) and missing some kind of important point. Our application has always been a nice to have - albeit an expensive one! But, it must be absolutely heart-breaking for many who have been preparing for sometime and hugely depending on having their visa granted around this time. Their lives and planning on hold for another two years. It was a lengthy process anyway but this new DIAC initiative seems ridiculous.

Moan over!

Diary (Blog)
Visas