Smiley

Here's one for the gurus....
I am an Australian citizen, and my spouse applied for spouse visa in
December, 2001.
Provisional Permanent Resisence was granted by Washington in April,
2002, and we moved to Aus in May 2002 (and have not travelled abroad
since).
DIMIA sent us forms for the transition to permanent residence in
October/November 2003, with the date for receipt of police checks, and
other documentatin as Decemeber, 2003. We provided all documents in a
timely manner.
Permanent resisdence was granted on March 31, 2004.
It appears to me, if the proposed act passes in the current form,
UNLESS we can claim he "was engaged in activities during that period
that the Minister considers to be beneficial to Australia" (he is a Web
Manager at a regional university) he will have to wait until March 31st
2007, rather than 2006, to obtain citizenship.
My question is this:
Should the Permanent Resident visa have been granted 2 years after the
ORGINAL APPLICATION? If it had, he would be elible to apply for
citizenship in December, and assuming the act does not pass between now
and mid-December, meet the residency requirement of the old act?

I have written to our local MP, but as she is a Labour girl, I think it
unlikely she will be able to help much.

Any ideas/analysis?

thanks
Smiley

welshtony

HYard to comment without seeing policy documents etc but, assuming there are no transitional arrangements with the new legislation and you have to be considered under the 3 year rule, I think the best yo ucould hope for would be to prove that your permanent residency was 3 months late due to Administrative Error by DIMIA. The Minister could then credit you the three months against the new 3 year requirement.


Tony

JAJ

Depending on how the policy arrangements work out, there is a possibility of a credit for time in Australia on a temporary visa under the new law.



Jeremy