ronson

Good day to all,
I got my PR visa granted recently and I was hoping to do the first entry next year. Earlier I planned a vacation for the holidays in Australia while I still had my tourist visa. So am travelling for my holiday to Oz later this month. I know this will activate the PR visa but do I need to go now to Centrelink, Medicare, open bank account etc? I would rather prefer to do that when I move there next year. Furthermore I highly doubt they will be working during the holidays.

Also when I land there for my vacation later this month do I need to tick "A: Migrating permanently to Australia" or "B: Visitor or temporary entrant" on the landing card? Again I will not move on this visit, I will only stay for a week or two.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Pollyana

If you are on holiday and only visiting to validate your visa there is no need to register with Medicare. You only need to register with centrelink if you are entitled to any benefits from them so no point doing that when you are on holiday either. If you can find time to open a bank account though that might be handy as it will mean its ready for you to move money into when you emigrate.

As for the passenger card, tick whatever you like, its only for the collection of statistics.

ronson

Thank you for the prompt answer Pollyana. Would you recommend a good bank where I can do this?

Pollyana

I'm not very financially minded I'm afraid. However as your queries aren't really visa related, but more lifestyle stuff, I'll move your thread to the main forum where there is plenty of discussion about banks etc.

Dorothy

I know Wespac has a migrant banking centre, but all the big banks are pretty same same. We've been with ANZ since we first arrived, but I also have accounts at BankWest (subsidiary of Commonwealth) and with a small credit union in WA.

garyp

Would imagine you would need to have an Australian address to open anything in person but I did open a bank account with Westpac from the UK using UK address.

ronson

Hi all, thank you for your replies. Yes, you can open Westpac account online and the identity verification is done when you arrive.

old.sparkles

I have a fully functional westpac account - I did ID verification in London so we have bank cards already too

Elizabeth31

I've just been on a two week holiday to validate my PR visa and on immigration card I marked that it was a holiday. While there I opened two bank accounts one with ANZ and one with Westpac it was very easy as we had just entered the country and validated the visa. I would suggest opening your bank account as soon as you get there as they only need to see the visa and the date of entry on your passport, you do not need to have an Australian address (although I did use my daughters Aussie address to have cards delivered to).

Good luck and enjoy your holiday.