Gill Palmer

Jeremy

http://patriot.net/~crouch/hague.html

This link reveals that Australia has formally ratified the Hague Convention concerning child-abduction, so has the UK. The Convention was driven by the Americans, but we can all see that it is off the wall to treat childen as pawns in an international matrimonial dispute, plainly.

The English Court has ruled that Hubby had no right to bring the children to England without Mum's consent, and has ordered their immediate return to Australia. Since Australia has ratified the Convention, it is highly unlikely that Australia would disagree with the English Court. Truth is that the English Court (the local law Hubby was hoping to rely on) probably wouldn't have granted the Order unless it was absolutely CERTAIN that the Australian Government would allow the children to re-enter Australia.

Problems now are:-

1. Try telling that to the guy at the airport if the children arrive in Australia on ETAs - it is WAY too complex for the staff at the airport; and

2. Try telling it to the ground-staff of many an airline at Heathrow.

Therefore, I revert to my original instinct of a 12 month paper 676. With Mum's recent one, her passport came back with a letter from AHC London, SPELLING OUT her entitlement to re-enter Australia for 8 unbroken months as requested.

I made sure that she had the letter handy, along with her passport and e-ticket, so that in the event of a fuss at Heathrow, Singapore or Perth, Mum would be able to produce the AHC letter and invite the objector to read it for themselves.

Knowing that that letter would simply SORT OUT any objections that anyone might try to raise was worth every penny of the £35 in my view.

Cheers

Gill

PS - Why does BE always get interesting in the middle of the night in the UK when I should be safely abed?!

JAJ

There is an argument that the Hague Convention is a medicine that's worse than the disease. But there is no easy way to resolve child custody issues when the parents want to live on opposite sides of the world.

Why does the airline have to be involved? It's perfectly legal to travel on a one-way ticket to Australia and you don't have to give a reason. However in order to avoid having to argue the issue at check-in you should either:

- get an ok in writing from airline management; or
- buy a return ticket which may not cost much more

As for arriving at the airport, there are supervisors and managers on duty all the time to deal with issues like this. Anything complex is always referred to secondary inspection anyway. Which is why she ought to have access to professional advice immediately upon arrival.


If the 676 was granted with condition 8503 then there would be a more complex issue to sort out. Condition 8503 is effectively non-waivable (in 99% of cases) and it is not possible to get an ETA if you have another substantive visa in effect.



Jeremy

Gill Palmer

Now you are just being silly and contradicting yourself, chum, which is OK with me.

Point One: Whatever anyone might think of the Convention, your statement is a non-sequitur. It has been adopted as Law by the Governments of both Australia and of Great Britain, and neither Government is likely to worry about your or my opinions about diseases or cures, I suggest.

Point Two: Why does an airline have to be involved? How else are the children going to get to Australia by any other quick method of travel? According to your earlier post, Tracey would need to pay a wad of lolly to a Migration Agent to hang about at Heathrow just in case an airline such as Malaysian might turn out to have the remotest interest in his opinions. (Which strikes me as an inherently unlikely notion, but it was your own suggestion, not mine, chum!)

According to you on another thread a few days ago, some people turned up at an airport to check themselves in for a flight bound for Australia, relying on one-way tickets. According to you, the airline refused to allow them to board and the whole thing finished up in Court - several months later, no doubt. Here speaks a man with no experience of long-haul flying with young children, because whilst the adults brawl at the check-in followed by the Court, the children will howl "McBurger" and will raise Cain unless it is provided, in my own experience of travelling with ankle-biting rug-rats!

Have you ever tried yourself to tell Airline Management, "Today is Wednesday, you've taken my shekel for your 11am flight on Sunday and I want it in writing from you lot between now and 7am on Sunday that you do not have a problem with my one way ticket."? BA would say, "Forsooth!" and Quantas would say, "Strewth!" Both would ignore your demand, however.

Point Three: Apparently at 2am in Adelaide, there will be plenty of Senior DIMIA Officials just ready and waiting to give themselves a crash course in the workings of the Hague Convention, it now appears. For safety's sake, however, it appears that "Professional Advice" should be hanging about on the concourse. This Expert who is no longer required at Heathrow (according to you) now needs to beam up at Adelaide Arrivals instead, it would seem. What use will he be, since he won't be allowed to go airside?

This sort of nonsense is precisely why I will never permit my mother to accept any sort of "advice" that does not carry my personal (as her lawyer) endorsement. £35 quid produces the thing that convinces every time - the Gold Nugget Letter From The Australian Government. My mother has no need of suggestions that potentially involve trying to go to the village green via the moon because the Best solution is invariably the one marked Easy, in my long experience of assisting other people with their legal problems.

Try being constructive instead of trying to score cheap points for your own ego, I suggest. Play the ball, not your opponent, on pain of discovering that your opponent might boot you in Lord Kelvin's Testimonials. (Ask Wikipedia about adjusting the marine magnetic compass: then you will know what the spheroids known as LKTs are!)

G'day, mate.

Gill

JAJ

Look - at the end of the day a case like this is "not simple" there may be no route that doesn't involve some risks or issues to work around. It's just a question of managing the risks as best as possible.

It may even be an option to bring the children to Australia on an ETA and stay entirely within the intent of the ETA/tourist visa scheme by applying for a child migrant visa offshore (you could lodge in London and get the visa stamped in Auckland).

As for dealing with the airline, same points as originally made: a. get an ok in writing to use a one-way before buying any tickets, or b. get a return ticket.

Best advice to the original poster is to see a good migration agent - eg Peter Bollard or David Bitel (is he the guy you recommend?) and talk through the options in detail before deciding what to do. Another option, more local to Adelaide, would be Libby Hogarth.



Jeremy

Gill Palmer

You may want to arrange for a good migration agent to be present (or at least contactable) when you + children arrive at the airport, just in case there are problems. And do talk things through with a professional in advance.

These are your own words, in Post 27 on this thread. I asked you how to do the "mini-quote" thing. You chose to ignore my question. On your own head be it, therefore, that you will have to hunt about for your own words.

The remainder of your idiotic ideas can all be proven to have been stated by none other than you too. READ your OWN garbage, instead of being too bone-idle and too arrogant to do so, and you will see that I am right. You wrote it, so you should not experience difficulty in tracking your own deathless prose.

What is really bugging you here (but you are too arrogant to admit it) is that you have not got the foggiest clue about how AHC London works with applicants for 12-month 676 visas applied for and supplied on paper. You are in Australia. You have never had to do it. I HAVE done it, recently. Therefore there is no need for you to guess.

The fact is that DIMIA can, and WILL, do the unusual thing called NEGOTIATE. Where the circumstances are unusual, they are MORE THAN willing to discuss how best to help somebody, and they WILL (in my experience) help to tailor-make the visa so as to suit the particular requirement. What they won't do - quite rightly - is GUESS , unlike yourself.

If you see being told to get back in your pram as a personal attack on you for no greater reason than because you are on the wrong bloody track but suffer from peristent deafness because apparently nobody has better experience than you, then you get on with it, chum. I am not in a position to advise anyone except my own mother to stay AWAY from your own highly-theoretical and hopelessly impractical ideas.

Gill

JAJ

Your point about applying for a 676 might - or it might not - be the way to go. All I have done is note the risk of complications and observe that technically there's no real difference between a paper 676 (minus 8503) and an ETA in terms of what subsequent visas you can or can't go for in Australia.

You actually do make good points, but if you simply stated your case and left it at that, your arguments would be a lot stronger.

Can we agree there's no clear, obvious solution here (but rather a variety of options) that an online forum can tease out and the best suggestion is for the original poster to spend some time talking it through with someone like Peter/David/Libby etc?



Jeremy

Gill Palmer

Jeremy

Thanks for your posts. I am sorry for screaming at you, but sometimes men have to be forced out of deafness in my long & jaded experience of dealing with your own sex!

I agree 100% that a forum like this is absolutely NOT an adequate substitute for experienced, specialised, hands-on professional help. Trayla's situation is already fiendishly compex and difficult because international child-abduction has already occurred and so on, and I doubt that Hubby will ever accept that the British & Australian Governments between them might have a better idea than he does about what is best for his children.

As to the identity of the best and/or 'right' expert for Trayla, I do not have a clue. Peter Bollard's name crops up in connection with applicants who are likely to face problems with the medical criteria for migration. David Bitel, to judge from the articles he has published and the stuff one can read about him on the Internet, is The Man for litigation involving the many different issues surrounding Asian applicants and also for students - so I wouldn't instantly rush to consult him or the IARC for Trayla's case either. I don't know anything about the lady you mention, Libby. I don't know what her particular area of expertise is. This case needs somebody who knows about international child-abduction and how to talk to DIMIA in order to mitigate the procedural consequences of it, I suspect.

The reason why I favour the idea of a 676 paper visa for the children is because it is one of very few visas the exact terms of which can be negotiated with DIMIA in advance. So it is the closest thing to a flexi-deal, plus it allows for up to 12 months in Australia, which gives everyone time to talk some more and work out exactly how best to serve the children's best interests. It also enables the applicant to play off the front foot, by saying to DIMIA, "This is where I am trying to get to. In order to make my idea work, I need you to agree NOT to impose Condition 8503 or any other condition which might have a similar effect. This particular 676 application is designed to get the children back to Australia, in compliance with the International Court Order, so that an onshore application can be made for them once they are back in Australia. DIMIA, if my own ideas are not legally possible, then what else would be possible, please? The Australian Government has sanctioned bringing the children back to Australia, so it follows that there must be a correct procedural way in which to give effect to your Government's ruling about this."

I do not favour the idea of squirrelling the children into Australia on an ETA or an e-676 and then trying to do a deal with the local DIMIA office in Adelaide off the back foot afterwards. Doing that invites them to ask, "Well why didn't you tell us about all this in advance? Why didn't you apply for a paper 676 instead and explain the whole thing to us at the time?"

The children are in the UK. Therefore the Australian Government's relevant powers have been delegated to its High Commission in London. If they give the green light, no lesser mortal can argue about anything, it seems to me. It is a way to avoid any more potential messes and any more anguish for Trayla, in my view. Work WITH them, not against them or in spite of them.
(And if a airline wants to shove its own two penn'orth in, ditch them and choose a competitor which does not feel inspired to bicker, as you and I have already discussed elsewhere in this forum!)

On another thread, in which I mentioned that I had done something similar for my Mum, you commented that applicants for Contributory Parent visas are always given sympathetic consideration if they wish to visit Australia during the processing period. OK. Let us extrapolate from that. Surely the Court Order carries far MORE weight, and therefore deserves even more sympathy, in Trayla's situation?

I am concerned with the immediate question of how to get the children back into Australia via an authority to enter Australia in a way that will not lie in wait like a banana-skin once they are there. How to do the bit after that - which appears to be working out how to include them in Trayla's main application for PR - is separate issue, to be sorted out later, once the children are back on Australian soil. The medicals etc are part & parcel of the later application, and those can be done in Australia just as easily as here. Trayla's CO is right in saying that the medicals can be done later and that Hubby's present attempt to obstruct those can and should be ignored.

(I am so sure - now - that the medical end of things is merely a side-issue, procedurally, that I wouldn't have had Mum's own medical done in advance if I had realised that it is not cast in tablets of stone that that also had to be done outside of Australia: I didn't ask the POPC the right question about this bit, I realise now. With Mum, the UK medical has now been re-done from scratch, in effect, by a specialist physician in Australia with far better qualifications than the original UK GP. That more or less negates the original medical done in the UK anyway. I should have said to the POPC, "Doctors are doctors. The Words say that the APPLICATION must be made from outside Australia, not that the medical must be as well. The medical can be done in Australia instead, can't it?" I now think that their answer would have been "Yes." Hindsight is that most exact science, though, isn't it?!!)

I think that it is outside the scope of this forum to try to do any more than to get the children back into Australia in a way that carries no risk of stuffing up their mother or her children at a later stage in the game. I gather from Trayla that she is going to need some sort of special visa in order for her to come here to collect them. If she can avoid it, she does not want to be in the UK for more than a couple of weeks, because she would not be able to earn a meaningful income whilst she is here, and the cost of living in the UK is astronomically high, even if Trayla does not have to pay for accommodation etc whilst she is here.

I think the whole thing can be streamlined, to save time and money. I am SURE that First Enquiries will bend over backwards to provide her with sensible, practical, legally do-able advice. One thinks one is e-mailing someone in London, because the e-mail address comes from the London website. To judge by the speed/time-zone in which FE replied to me, I think their reply was generated by a lassie in Canberra. Getting it took a few hours because I sent the e-mail and then went to bed. The reply was in the in-box when I got up. Therefore for Trayla, in Adelaide, the e-mails back and forth would be even faster.

I've made out my arguments and I rest my case there.

Cheers

Gill

JAJ

Your apology is accepted.

This forum is a place for sharing of ideas and information on Australian and New Zealand immigration, and while it's always acceptable to disagree with someone else (provided you explain your reasoning), it's best to keep things as courteous as possible.

Migration law is complex and not designed to deal with every possible contingency. In some instances there is no single *right* answer but instead a number of options all of which have pros and cons. And as I think we agree, good professional advice is a must for situations like that.



Jeremy

Gill Palmer

I entirely agree. Therefore I suggest An Idea. If I say something that you disagree with, how about you avoid trying to be rude and sarcastic to me?

I will WILLINGLY put up with, "Gill, I hear you, but are you sure you are right because your reasoning so far fails to convince me?"

I will NOT put up with evil, snide little comments from you implying that I have not got a clue what I am talking about, gedditt?

The latter is the short-cut to to shoving your proverbial spheroids into the mangle with me working the handle, my friend. So stop it. Cut out the insane and arrogant attempts to patronise me via trying to insult my intelligence and I feel sure that a Deep Meaningful Relationship might emerge. I don't do Egotistical Nonsense and that is all there is to it.

Loadsalurve

Gill
xxx!

George Lombard

Hi Gill,

Not sure that David Bitel was a founder of IARC. The equivalent refugee advice service is RACS, afaik he has been with them from the beginning - he recently stepped down as president of the Refugee Council of Australia after a long time in the job. Haven't heard that he works for governments anywhere, but you could well be right.

On the other hand, IARC does offer pro bono advice of some substance, as long as you're able to drop into one of their advice sessions or have the patience to stay on the line for the telephone advice service. Also, there is a network of such agencies in the other states.

IARC url is www.iarc.asn.au .

Cheers,

George Lombard

Gill Palmer

George

Thanks for this. I only know of David Bitel. I don't know him personally, but I admire his articles. He is very hard-hitting and punchy, plus very tenacious, which makes him a man after my own heart. I read that he is a co-founder of the IARC, but I don't know anything about the IARC, and web-news is not always accurate anyway. He is definitely retained by the Governments of Afghanistan and two others (India and Pakistan, I think, but I am speaking from memory of something I read on the Web.) As you say, he is a Big Noise in Refugee circles and on humanitarian visas generally. Might be perfect for Manglu, if Manglu can afford him and turns out to need Mr Bitel's help.

Who would be the best person for Trayla, do you think? I'm not a migration agent, so I don't know whether it is possible to ask the MARA for a list of Agents who have handled visas where the facts are as they are for her children. What about the lady whom JAJ mentioned, Libby? I gather she is in Adelaide, but do you know whether she has experience of Trayla's kind of dilemma?

Also, JAJ mentioned something about a Dependent Child visa which could be applied for via the Australian High Commission in London. Would that be the right route for Trayla, do you think, or should the children be added to her own application for PR instead?

I do think that, whatever she does, Trayla needs to act quickly, and that she needs to get the children back to Australia asap, to avoid possible arguments that the children have become assimilated into UK society, and that to uproot them yet again would not be in their own best interests after all. It might be that she should make an application for the Dependent Child visa or whatever it is, and then get the children back out to Australia on a one-year 676, having negotiated the terms of that with DIMIA in advance, so that it doesn't contain Condition 8503 or the other one that can trip people up? (Offhand I can't remember its number but it might be Condition 8531: in the DIMIA page about visa-conditions, it says that even if 8503 can be overcome, the other one will bite anyway, rendering the applicant's presence in Australia unlawful once the 676 visa expires.) Presumably, though, once the children are back in Australia, Bridging Visas can be obtained for them if needed in due course?

My (limited) experience of dealing with DIMIA on my mother's behalf is that trying to guess at solutions to problems is not necessary and is a Bad Idea. If one writes to them (by e-mail) saying, "XYZ is my problem and I am not sure how to resolve it," they reply with incredible speed (that puts our own Civil Service to shame when it comes to responding to enquiries from the public.) DIMIA's replies are crisp, clear, concise, constructive and their suggestions are very effective. They came up with an idea for helping my mother which I had not thought of, but which saved her a bundle of time, money and unnecessary worry, for which I cannot thank them enough.

On a lighter note, if anyone wants a chuckle at my expense, I was up nearly all night on Friday having a stand-up row with young Jeremy. That threw me completely out of kilter and I thought yesterday was Sunday! I leapt out of bed this morning and rushed about, only to get told by Hubby, "Where's the fire? Today is Sunday. That'll teach you to stay up all night quarrelling with some cove on the other side of the planet, won't it, Grandma?!"

Cheers

Gill

George Lombard

Hi Gill,

Actually even I have performed services for the government of Afghanistan, and although David has many achievements listed with characteristic modesty on the Parish Patience website I hadn't heard about India and Pakistan. Given his close relationship with many in the Bangladeshi community here I'd have thought he'd have had Bangladesh up there.

I'm not up to speed on Trayla's case but will look at it quickly now.

Cheers,

George Lombard

www.austimmigration.com.au

steve`o

hi Gill

unfortunately "young Jeremy" as you call him has deleted mosts of his posts so we cannot see both sides of this obviously humerus match

excellent work

George Lombard

Hi Trayla,

On the basis of what you've posted here then I think if you bring your children to Australia as the holders of ETAs or visitor visas then you should be aware that they cannot be included in your graduate skilled application, even though they would meet all the usual requirements for inclusion of family members.

I won't bore you with the details but the bottom line is that the visa Subclasses 880, 881 and 882 are expressly excluded from this possibility by reg. 2.08A (which only excludes three other kinds of visa). This actually strikes me as monumentally unfair - I cannot conceive of a reason why they wouldn't allow children to be included in your situation. It's even worse that had you been properly advised you could have held off the graduate application until the kids were back here as the holders of any substantive visa, eg a visitor's visa or ETA. The purpose of the medicals, as far as your current case officer is concerned, is therefore the medical examination of non-migrating family members. If the case officer is proposing to include the children in spite of reg. 2.08A, good luck, that kind of error in your favour sometimes happens.

And I suppose that once you have collected the children you'll be able to do the medicals with them yourself, so you might well be in close communication with your CO and have a clear idea that the grant of your PR is going to swiftly follow your return to Australia with the kids. In that case, the obvious thing to do is bring them here on ETAs and make a child visa application for them when possible to do so.

However, if the children's visas expire before your own visa grant then it might be more complex, not that this would be a barrier to an application necesssarily, but there's some checking which would need to be done.

So I do think it's possible you'll need some help, whether from IARC or a friendly migration agent in South Australia or even DIMA, to determine the best visa, timing of travel and post-arrival visa options. Some DIMA officials offshore would follow the book line that as the children are offshore they should just apply for child visas when you get your PR, so probably you're best off talking to someone in the advice industry to explore your full range of options if the ASPC case officer isn't expansively generous. Libby Hogarth in Adelaide is highly regarded, however you might want to explore the options for free advice first - you could start by calling IARC in Sydney on 9281 1609 to ask them about cognate services in Adelaide, if that's where you currently are.

Cheers,

George Lombard

www.austimmigration.com.au

Gill Palmer

Dear George

I had got involved with other threads and other things, so I had not read this post by you until 10 minutes ago.

Mods - Please do NOT accuse me of 'bumping' etc - because George is making some very serious and valuable points here, so a diverting (and according to some hilarious) skirmish between JAJ and I should NOT be allowed to cloud the actually very serious and valuable issues in this thread, I suggest.

I have no reason to doubt George's technical accuracy. Because of this, Trayla is in the middle of a potential MINEFIELD with this thing.

I am only very peripherally involved with Australian visas, for the sake of my own mother. So given the technical problems thrown up by George, I am now all-out of ideas about how to help Trayla.

Please, please, the world! Is there an idea out there that can be made to adhere to the proverbial wall? This lass deserves every ounce of help that the rest of us can between us supply, I suggest.

Hopefully

Gill