TheGreenz

I am just wondering if anyone has had experience of this situation. We are currently in Qld on a 457 visa and we have just lodged our PR application a couple of weeks ago, I have just got paperwork for chest xrays from my agent but we did them for our 457 early this year, could we use our previous ones? I know medicals are only valid for 12 months but I was'nt sure about the xrays.Although we are overjoyed with the news of a new arrival we are worried our plans will now be put on hold. I have read a thread about a couple in our situation but they are in the uk, not sure how it works if we are already in Australia. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated.

Rachel G.

iPom

Hi Rachel

I can't help you but just wanted to say congratulations on your pregnancy. I had an unexpected one too, took me quite a while to get used to the thought of another child, but he's 4 now and we wouldn't be without him.

TheGreenz

We already have a daughter Jessie, it was yesterday on her 2nd birthday we found out number two was on the way, It's great news but it has put our plans to drive to perth next year on hold for a while!

Rachel G

iPom

Do it whilst they're tiny I say. We drove to Adelaide from Sydney with our 3 week old. It was a breeze. Being pregnant and travelling isn't so much fun though!

JAJ

You would be better advised to ask on the immigration forum. Sometimes you can reuse 457 medicals, other times you cannot.

One thing you need to know is that if the child is born before PR is granted, he or she will not be an Australian citizen at birth and the child's health will also need to be assessed as part of your PR application. It also means no baby bonus etc.

bredennis

Hi Rachel

Congratulations on your news.

Our experience was applying for a PR visa from the UK. We received an e-mail from our case officer saying that our visa was ready to grant and was this suitable for our purposes at this time. My wife was still pregnant and I said "Yes Please!"... WOOPS . That Yes Please cost us over £500 as our new baby Matthew couldn't be added onto a granted visa even though we hadn't arrived in Australia. The DIMIA say they want to know if you're pregnant. My advise would be to find out if delaying your visa grant until after the birth would be a hell of a lot cheaper in your circumstances.

Hope this helps.

Ben

JAJ

This is well meaning advice but the circumstances of someone living in Australia on a temporary visa are completely different!

If baby is born in Australia to an PR visa holder, then he or she is automatically an Australian citizen and no visa is needed.

An unborn child is not a visa applicant and cannot be a reason to refuse or delay granting visa if parents want to proceed.

esperanza

The situation would surely be different though if the baby was born a few weeks before the parents were given PR?

JAJ

Yes it would be different and if baby had health problems that might be the end of the PR application.

esperanza

Could be quite harsh.

Would it be safer then to proceed with PR application and push it through as fast as possible so that baby would be automatic resident and healthcare not such an issue? Would it be feasible to not disclose the pregnancy for a few months or could that invalidate the whole thing?

(Oh and big congratulations to the expectant couple! )

JAJ

Pregnancy will be disclosed at medical time. The problem is that pregnant women don't normally do an x-ray but this is not mandatory and some doctors don't have an issue with it.

Once again, an unborn child is not a visa applicant and is not a lawful reason to refuse to grant a visa. Once child is born, things change (if child is not an Australian citizen).

esperanza

Mmmm I got that, I was thinking that if you lied then that might invalidate the application.

JAJ

There's no question of not disclosing information in this case.

And even if there was, there's a fairly common understanding that pregnancy is not a notifiable change of circumstances (however, birth of a non-Australian child certainly is).