lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

Hi

can anyone help as i'm in a bit of a situation, i'm 33 and have a flight provisionally booked for the 22/2/9
a friend of mine is younger and has a standard visitor/working visa, but i'm struggling.
can anyone advise or point me in the right direction

thanks to anyone listening

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

It depends on what you wish to come for and how long.

Here is a good place to start:

http://www.immi.gov.au

The wizard may be of some help too.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

Thanks for reply,

i'm looking for a year to start with and to do travel and work, i have experience in transport, logistics and warehousing in many different roles leading to operations manager for a large logistics company.

would be happy to do any kind of work to start with.

unfortunately dont have loads of money for the 175 visa

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

The only visa you are eligible for to begin with is a visitor visa. While you are travelling around you can look for a sponsor to employ you - but you MUST wait for the correct visa before starting work. You CANNOT work on a visitor visa under any circumstances.

If you do you will complicate and potentially ruin any chances of getting a visa in the future

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

For your own protection be extremely careful about giving case specific and definitive migration advice.

For starters unless you are a registered migration agent it is an offence under the Migration Act 1958. Max penalty 10 years in the pokey and $110k fine except under certain very specific circumstances.

Far worse, from the OP's point of view, you may be giving misleading advice. Just because you have put together and successfully lodged an application for a visa or visas in your own very specific set of circumstances does not necessarily extrapolate out to having sufficient knowledge to advise definitively for other people in their equally specific set of circumstances.

By all means preface your statement by saying, "To the best of my knowledge..." and/or "From what you have said... I think..."

Far more information from the OP is needed before I would consider giving the definitive advice that you have, and I am a RMA.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

I would need to look at your CV to see if any of that could be used. Depending on your CV it may be possible to approach prospective employers for 457 sponsorship, but that would preclude you from travelling and working. If successful you would only have the usual four weeks annual leave which may not be what you are looking for.

Do you have any family connection to Australia? If so that may be able to be used.

There is no equivalent of a working holiday visa once you have turned 31.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

If he's booked a flight for 22 Feb I very much doubt he can get any other visa - i should have worded it better.

If everyone on here got 10 years in jail for offering advice we'd be up a creek without a paddle.

Anyway, I'll be more careful in future.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

I was under the impression that if you come here on a visitor visa you are not really supposed to seek work, and if immigration suspected that you were going to seek work then they might not let you in!

I noticed in Singapore airport when boarding the plane to Aus that the officials were interrogating various types about their intentions over here!

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

The OP's flight booking, from what was written, is provisional. One would therefore presume it could be changed.

As regards offering advice, most people on here do couch their words carefully, although a lot don't. A lot of the advice offered here is good, but some is misleading, some is incorrect and yet more is incomplete.

The problem for OPs is knowing which category the proferred advice comes into.

The difficulty is that quite often people are tendering advice without knowledge of the full facts. Sometimes what looks like a simple question can, at times, be quite complex.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

In theory, and under very strict and specific circumstances, it is possible to apply for permission to work, but I know of none which have succeeded.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

This is why I no longer offer much information on here. Agents on the site have threaned me with legal action in the past for stating what I know from my own experiences.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

Would that mean anyone posting on here is under threat of being sued? I had a preconception that this is more like a support group for people in a much stressful sutuation. Not everyone is willing or has sufficient funds to pay for professional services and do take their own risk of procuring advice from an open forum at their own choosing. I can't imagine posters being paid for giving an advice, or I seriously misunderstand what the legal definition of "assistance" is. If that could be construed as an offence under Australian law, I guess I will have to become a reader rather than a contributor.

NJ

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

I totally agree. I've seen a lot of posts on the BE immi forum where people who are not agents have offered advice as if they were experts, without any disclaimer, and unfortunately because of the manner in which the advice is offered, they are assumed to indeed be experts. I think this forum is great for chat and sharing of personal experience (& a great place to channel the energies of your visa obsession while waiting for said visa :p ) but it should never be used as an alternative to a registered agent / DIAC for answers to the important questions. Folks shouldn't present themselves as experts in the field, partic when their experience of the immigration system may be from some years ago and / or just from reading this forum. Not posting a disclaimer is the same as passing yourself off as an expert when you're giving direct advice to an individual.
Just my half pence-worth! ;)
(looking forward to 10.30pm this eve when maybe just maybe our CO will re-release our file from the queue :D )

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

All I can say is that when posting from my own experiences of gaining a spouse visa I have been told to stop posting the information or I would be taken to court.
I have never claimed to be an agent, and on numerous occasions have told people to use registered agents rather than relying on internet information. I have also never claimed to be a migration expert, and there are many many visa of which I have no knowledge at all and so don't answer any questions on.

Posters have commented that I don't post on the Immigration forum much anymore, well now they know why. I don't intend to share my personal experiences of migration if I am going to be threatened with legal action for it.

What is rather annoying - and it probably happens to the other Mods as well - is the fact that a lot of posters are unable to tell the difference between a Moderator and an agent. I get a lot of emails and private messages from people wanting personal advice about very complex situations. I can't answer them because I don't have the knowledge, training, and/or expertise, but some of them get quite annoyed when I tell them to consult an agent instead.
Even if the qustion is fairly simple though, such as validation rules or a RRV link, I prefer to answer on the forum rather than in private.

Re: lost and need help for over 30 going to OZ
 

Hi Pollyana! Why don't all moderators just put a disclaimer in their signature, wouldn't that preserve you all from the annoyance you describe? I politely asked for clarification re. qualifications of moderator as immigration advice giver when I first came to this forum and got a very snippy response (not from you I hasten to add). I figured it was a reasonable question, but was not treated as such. Surely signature disclaimer would avoid any confusion.
Pam :)