My wife & I are 54 years of age and as I worked as Police Officer for 30 years it meant I could retire at 51 with a very nice pension. My younger brother and his family are Australian citizens having lived here for almost 20 years. In 1999 on our first visit to see them we fell in love with the place and decided to look into the possibility of retiring here ourselves. We did our homework thoroughly and we easily matched all of the conditions attached to the retirement visa in place at that time except for our ages.

We made an enquiry with the Immigration department to see if there was an opportunity for us to move to Australia early on a temporary basis so that we could prepare for our retirement. They granted us a four year sub class 676 visa which meant we had to keep leaving Australia every six months but as Bali is not far away and pretty cheap to get to it wasn’t too much of a problem. As non-residents we had to apply to the government to buy our seven acre block and also to build our dream retirement home. In the application it was clearly stated that it was our intention to retire here and it was granted. Nothing was ever mentioned about possible changes to the regulations.

We downsized in the UK to fund the building of our new home in Australia and in 2006 we moved here lock stock and barrel bringing with us all of our assets and have since invested all of that within Australia with cars, boats, swimming pool etc and have fully integrated ourselves into the Australian way of life which we love. We belong to a number of community associations and have been very active doing our bit by doing voluntary work.

As we approached our 55 birthdays it came time to apply for our retirement visa only to find that they had changed the regulations which meant we had to hand over $500,000 in a bond which of course we no longer had. Despite appeals for a bit of common sense or at least some compassion everything is falling on deaf ears and it seems that there is no way round the black & white regulations.

Our current visa runs out this October and if we fail to sell our house by then which given the current economic crises is more than just a possibility, we will have to leave and in effect be homeless and financially ruined. Despite taking every precaution to ensure that our retirement would be hopefully a long, happy and secure one our whole world has come crashing around our ears and there doesn’t seem to be a thing we can do about it.

And we thought Australia was the home of ‘Fair Go’

©Paul Beard