Aged parent visa
 

We understand that aged parent visas can be applied for inside Australia, but how do we get parents into Australia first?
Are there bridging visas available? What are the health requirements?
Any help gratefully received.

Regards
Andy and Diane

Re: Aged parent visa
 

Hello Andy and Diane.

Firstly - a few words of warning: parents (and indeed any person entering Australia) should not enter Australia on a temporary visa if their known intention when arriving is to seek permanent residency.

However, if parents are undecided about whether or not to live in Australia the first step is a 410-Retirement visa. For details see here:
http://www.gomatilda.com/visas/tempo...etirement Visa

If the parents like what they see, want to remain in Australia, and meet all the qualifying conditions (see:
http://www.gomatilda.com/visas/famil...m#Parent Visas)
they would then make the application for the Aged Parent visa.

A Bridging Visa should be available if the Retirement Visa wasn't renewed (say on the grounds of ill health), but in this situation the applicant for the Aged Parent visa would fail to meet the health requirement for the permanent visa as well.

The health requirement is the standard health requirement - ie. the same one as applies to all permanent and long term temporary visa applicants:
http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1071i.pdf

The Immigration Minister has expressed a desire for an increased number of parent visas (this from the Ministerial Release of 07/05/2002):
"4,000 places in a full year remains available for parent migration should there be support from opposition parties to allow legislation to ensure a fair share of health and welfare costs is covered by a parent and the Australian sponsor compared to taxpayers in general."

Therefore (subject to the agreement of the opposition parties) there might be some improvment in the long waiting times under the Parent and Aged Parent visa sub-classes - albeit with a need to lodge a reasonable bond to cover health costs.

Does this help? Feel able to email me directly if you want to discuss some specifics.

Best regards.




Alan Collett
alan-at-gomatilda-dot-com
Registered Migration Agent Number 0102534
and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
http://www.gomatilda.com and
http://www.collettandco.co.uk