62) Visas

If you have followed my blog from the beginning you will know that I have moved many times in my life. I have lived in 16 different houses, 7 different towns and 5 different countries and come to think of it 3 different continents. I hope and pray that I don’t have to move any more. I am happy were I am and have no desire to move on.

We came into this country 7 ½ years ago on a Temporary Business Visa and shortly after we arrived we applied for an Aged Parent Visa so that we could stay here with our children and grandchildren. We had to produce our Police clearance certificates, have a medical examination and pay a fee. We were told that we had been accepted and put onto the queue with many other people who were, like us, waiting to be granted Permanent Residence Visa’s. Although it was never promised, it was implied that it would take about 4 or 5 years and we were given a tracking number to enable us to watch our progress on the Internet. I think if it had been an actual queue, like one outside a cinema it would have gone way up the street and around about 20 blocks and we would have been tempted to say “We’ll come back some other time” but this was not the cinema it was our visa so we just had to wait it out.

From information I found on the internet we knew that this year (July 09 to June 10) the government intended to process 600 Aged Parent Visas and when I checked on the list on 15th March we were sitting at number 520. As we had been number 1150 at the end of June, that meant that 530 had already been processes in this current year. We only expected 70 more to go through before the end on June but that meant that if they intended to process another 600 next year we could expect to receive our visas some time in early 2011. But on March 22nd we received a letter from the Department of Immigration and Cultural Affairs telling us that they intended possessing our visa and could we please get new police clearance certificates, have more medical examinations, ask our sponsor to deposit a large sum of money into their bank and fill in another lot of forms.

Of course we were very pleased that things were beginning to move and set about to fill all the requirements. On the Internet we were able to find a list of cost for the granting of police clearances. There were three different price levels – one if it was without fingerprints, another if the applicant supplied a copy of their finger prints and a third if the police were to take the finger prints and process them. Only one problem with that - nowhere on the form could we find out if we needed to have a “With fingerprint” or “Without fingerprint” document. We found a place on the Internet that said, “Fingerprints only need to be taken if the class of clearance being applied for has been legislated to require them” but no where could we find a list of ‘classes that had been legislated’ for. It took many phone calls and being told by an answering machine to “Press button 1, 2 or 3” for us to assume that we did not need the fingerprints but it was not 100% clear so we just filled in the forms and sent them off with an enclosed cheque, sure that they would soon let us know if we were wrong.

Then came trying to make an appointment for our medical examinations. The letter from Department of Immigration had given us a telephone number to call. I phoned it and the friendly answering machine told me that if I wanted I could book an appointment on line. That sounded good to me, as I am not very partial to answering machines. When I went on line I was informed that if I needed to book more than one medical examinations it would be better to do it in person as the internet could not book two appointments together and I could end up with my two appointment on two different days, which of course would not be convenient. There was a phone number to call, a 1300 number, which is usually a national central exchange. The operator was bright, friendly and very willing to help. We decided on a date and time and she began taking my details. She asked “Why on earth do you want to come here for your appointment, I am in the Brisbane office, you surely don’t want to come this far for a medical examination?” I explained that I had rung the number given to me on the Internet but somehow I had got routed through to the Brisbane local office. She told me that she was new on the job but she would find out the number of the Sydney office so that I could call them to make my appointment. It took her a little while to find someone who could give her the information she was looking for but eventually she found the correct number – the same one I had called originally obviously I needed to listen to the end of the answering machine’s list of options. Back to the phone, listen to all the options and “hold on to speak to an operator” and I managed at long last to speak to the correct person and to make appointments for both Jonny and myself to have all the medical examinations required for us to satisfy the Department of Immigration requirements.

With the help of my computer I was able to find out where the medical centre was situated, what time the trains ran and to plan our day so that it could go without a hitch, but I will tell you more about that next time. .

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