Chris N Lora

Hi andy, we got our PR fly out in Dec to Aussie!!!

AndyR

That frickin wicked!!!! Sooo chuffed for you guys as its been such a long wait hasn't it, but come good in the end.

Where abouts are you heading to in WA? Perth yeah?

Chris N Lora

Yeah over the moon mate,

I have had to reject the offer of employment in Auckland now .... It has all happened inside 4 weeks of getting a CO. I know 3 years 3 weeks to the day nearly!!!

Perth, is our choice but not sure where will have to book a hotel hire a car and see what feels right to us!.

How is NZ treating you good I hope.

AndyR

Ah cool, so glad you got it through in the end as none of us expected a 3yr wait for the visa eh.

We never made it over to Perth on our travels in OZ but everyone we spoke to about it loved it over there. Also know another expat from another forum who went there, Fremantle I think, and he's loving it too.

Yep NZ is great for us thanks. Expecting our first little one in Feb so starting to make a home here now, even though we cant afford to buy a house just yet, but loving the lifestyle. Never know though Oz still might happen for us down the line.

Again, proper happy for you guys!

Chris N Lora

That is really great news reference the baby wow, he/she will be a NZ citizen by birth !!! fancy that they can go to Aus without a visa hehehe ... sods law. Our little one is 4 in Feb.

Really pleased you have settled well wishing you luck and fortune in NZ and obviously good health for baby when he/she arrives

Chris

AndyR

LOL! Just got another email from OZ Immigration to say that our application lodged in October 2008 has been bumped to the lowest category again because they have changed the SOL list and it no longer applies, even though the category I applied for is still on the SOL list when I just checked?

There recommendation is to apply for State Sponsored, or withdraw the application. At this rate I'll have my NZ Citizenship before they get to look at the Oz visa and could emigrate that way if I wanted.

Gutted we put so much time, effort and money into that Oz visa app, 4 years ago!!!

Oh and during all of this, I end up working for a US company, based in the Auckland office, but I report to and am paid by our Melbourne, Australia office! Random

Chris N Lora

Hi Andy gutting news mate,

You a dad yet?
Been out here in Aus 6 months now I think that immi do nto have a clue what they are talking about to be honest!!

AndyR

LOL! Long time no update but I have to let people know this.

4 years and 2 months since we lodged the GSM Visa application we get a email from Australian Immigration today saying they are now looking at our application. BUT.....yep there is a but. Because its taken them 4 years 2 months to look at it they are now saying that our work history, character assessment, medicals and police checks all need to be re-done and re-submitted AND we have to do this within 28 days or our visa will not be processed.

HAHAHA! What a flipping joke! We have been living in New Zealand as Permanent Residents for 2 years now, 3 years away from Citizenship which would grant us residency in Oz anyway.

We also have a 9 month old daughter now so also have to submit change of application forms to cover that.

Just told the wife and we are both thinking we'll just email immigration back and say thanks but no thanks. We'd have loved to have been living in Oz but things didn't work out that way and we are happy in NZ now, esp as the immigration process was soooo much easier and simpler. We can't afford to go through all the health checks, police checks again anyway, but whats to say that if we did them anyway they wouldn't just sit on them again and cost us even more money.

Ah well. Live and learn I guess. Biggest waste of money we did was applying for the Ozzie visa really, especially now that they are expecting us to shell out again because it took them so long to do it in the first place.

reehan

Can't you request a refund by stating your situation. I hope Diac will consider it.

AndyR

Nope, we requested a refund back in June this year when they changed the status again. We were told "DIAC are happy to withdraw our application however it is not policy to issue a refund due to the work already undertaken on our application". No idea what work it is that takes them 4 years to do nothing with it

Such a lot of time, effort and money went into the application, particularly the IELTS and RPL. Am just so glad we ended up in NZ with such a simple, quick and cheap visa process, otherwise we'd still be 4 years down in the UK waiting.

AndyR

Had another reply from them today. I asked why we need to resubmit all the checks and supporting docs again and they reply back saying, "they need to be resubmitted because they supporting docs you provide are only valid for 12 months. Due to the fact you applied in 2008 these documents need to be replaced."

I reply back saying well they only expired because you have sat on the application for 4 years. Don't you pre-check the documents when we submit them? Whats to say you don't sit on these new ones for a further 12 months and request them again as we can't keep afford to keep doing this?"

There response was "If you do not replace the required documents again with current valid ones then your application will be rejected. Your alternative is to either replace the documents or withdraw your application".

Now if we really needed the Visa we would be f-ing pissed now. But thankfully living in NZ we are happy where we are, but to me this whole Ozzie visa thing has been the biggest money scam we have ever had. How can they legally/morally sit on documents for 4yrs only to then ask us to pay again because they have been lazy!! Shocking!

Suffice it to say we are not doing them. We couldn't afford it if we wanted to anyway, and we are not going to withdraw the application. It can sit in there queue for all we care.

What a waste of time, money and effort this visa application was.

reehan

What do they mean by all checks and supporting documents? Do they mean all experiencce/reference letters, educational transcripts and other required documents?

Pollyana

They are talking about ones which expire, eg medicals and police checks.

jaystar

Helloooo! I'm posting in here as the old Nov 08 thread seems to be closed.

Anyway, We lodged in Nov 08 and it was all taking so long, what with my dad reaching 70, we had all but decided not to go. So we thought no more about it. Until a couple of weeks ago. My husband, with no warning, got made redundant as the company he worked for went into administration. Our world was kind of rocked. At the same time, we heard from our agent (Go Matilda) that our visa was still live and waiting to be processed (though I'm not sure what I was expecting to have happened to it). And that priority 5 applications are slowly beginning to be processed. We just began wondering if actually, as hard as it would be with my dad (who is currantly visiting my brother in Perth), whether the right thing for us would be to go to Australia, *if* the visa is processed in the next year or so and we get the chance.

I looked at the Nov 08 thread and saw the 'fate' of some of them on there but was just wondering if anyone else was hanging around the priority 5 corridor that lodged in Nov 08?

Nothing in life is simple is it?

AndyR

Yep, they wanted us to submit medicals/police checks again. Plus because we have now been living in NZ for 3 years they want us to submit police checks for NZ too and they also want me to redo my work experience section taking into account NZ works so because of that they has asked me to get all of my work references again! These were a pain in the last time because 2 of my roles were large corporates so took me forever to be able to get someone with authority to reference me, plus now being outside the country would make it even harder. So all of that plus the circa $800 it would costs us in fees again which we don't have meant we have decided now to progress any further. We emailed the case officer back saying we did not wish to proceed stating all the reasons as they said they would email us a document to fill out as we needed to do it within 28 days.......that was nearly 2 months ago. So once again AU Immi take waaaaay longer than they said.