The early 2017 announcement of a longer stay, temporary visa for parents of Australian Citizens and permanent residents was met with great anticipation. Parents no longer needed to meet the ‘Balance of Family’ test by having at least half of their children in Australia, and the fees were not as prohibitive as those for the Contributory Parent visas.
Details on the requirements were published by Immigration following a statement by the then Assistant Minister on 5 May 2017, and plans were made in the 2017/2018 budget for the visa to be opened to applicants in November 2017. Further details are available on our information page here.
Almost a year on from the intended start date, and the visa is nowhere in sight.
So what happened?
It all lies in the ‘Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2016’ which is still before parliament. The Bill is designed to establish a sponsorship framework for the sponsored family visa program, which (amongst other things), would introduce a separate sponsorship assessment from the visa application process for family sponsored visas, and require the approval of persons as family sponsors before any relevant visa applications are made.
This is not popular with onshore Partner and Parent visa applicants, prevented from lodging a visa application and nervously watching the expiry date of their visa stay while the sponsorship application processes.
A number of amendments to the Bill have been suggested – including only allowing Australian Citizens to sponsor and requiring a formal report into the changes – however nothing has been agreed to and the Bill languishes in between parliamentary sittings and the unfortunate rotation of Prime Ministers.
It doesn’t look like ‘new’ 10 year visa stay for parents will come into effect any time soon, so the next best option would be the longer stay Visitor visa.
Immigration are willing to assess parents for Subclass 600 Visitor visas valid for:
-
five years for parents outside Australia who are in the Parent (Migrant) visa (subclass 103) queue
-
three years for parents outside Australia who have had a previous Australian visa and complied with the visa conditions, and either:
-
18 months for parents who have not previously travelled to Australia and either:
Parents are only able to stay for a maximum or 12 months in any 18 month period, must hold fully comprehensive health insurance while in Australia (reciprocal health arrangements are not sufficient), and will be subject to a mandatory ‘no further stay’ condition preventing them from applying for further visas in Australia.
AMVL Migrations are keeping a close eye on the Bill and the Temporary Parent Visa, and will send out updates as soon as there is any news. If you do have queries about Parent visa options or the longer stay Visitor visa, please contact us for assistance.
