lack of communication over application times

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Comment by Kim and James on July 16, 2009 at 9:48pm

thank you migration angel - I'll give them a ring

Comment by migrationangel.com on July 15, 2009 at 4:04pm

Hi everyone.
It is frustrating that the downd=turn has moved the goalposts and the rules can change overnight.
There are many people who have migrated adn can't find work and that's not a position you want to be in either.

Kim I know it is tempting to try and get here on whatever visa possible but it is worth thinking through again. You might be taking an unnecessarily expensive route with the business visa when you may have other alternatives.
I know that skills shorage consulting are happy to chat over the phone and give people some pointers.
Good luck.

Comment by Kim and James on July 13, 2009 at 8:25pm

Hi Jennifer, I've just read your message - not sure how I missed it.... We are worrying about the other applications jumping the queue too. Our agent is not really communicating with us so we are a bit lost. We are also applying for a 176 skilled sponsored visa so perhaps we are level 4 after all....... We are just going to play the waiting game for now. we try not to think about Australia at all. A year and a half is a long time to wait as we have been planning for about a year. We are quite impatient people so we find it so hard ..... My husband is 42 this year aswell and we are aware that 45 is the cut off age and just want things to start moving. Hope your agent is more useful!! good luck from Kim

Comment by jennifer salter on July 9, 2009 at 7:18pm

Hi kim - im sorry to hear your situation, it sounds worse than ours - for us it is a real inconvenience and financially has been draining but when i read situations like yourselves, it puts things into prospective. We were told originally that bricklayers were on the critical list - priority 3 and then as the construction workers were taken off priority 3 (CSL) we were placed on MODL list (apparently priority 4) we were led to beleive that priority 5 were then all other visas (who I feel even more sorry for!) A big worry is that if more and more applications come in for priorities 1.2 and 3 over the next year - will we be placed further and further back in the queue? we have resigned ourselves to the fact that all our medicals etc will be void before we hear and as stated before, the house is now off the market - people I talk to said how TV shows and previous adverts from Australia have made the process seem so so simple in comparison to what they have heard me saying. My friends in Brisbane state that there are a lot of non-speaking or poorly spoken immigrants living there and it makes you wonder how on earth they get through the system when hardworking skilled families cannot! We are applying for a 176 skilled sponsor visa - we couldnt get the 175 as my husband was a few points short due to his age of 42. Lets hope we all get some good news sometime in the near future - I just hope it is all worth it in the end! Good Luck

Comment by Tom Rowlands on July 8, 2009 at 10:42am

The agents are under a lot of pressure at the moment - the numbers of changes in the migration system that have been going on in the last few months have been very hard for them to keep up with. It is their job to do so of course but with Australia in recession the federal Government has not made it easy for the migration agents at all.

The only thing I could suggest is patience, applications will take longer in most cases than they would have done 18-24 months ago but they are all being queued, it is just taking longer.

If you are concerned the best thing would be to call your agent - they got lots of emails and may just not have the time to get back to you. It is not easy for the agents currently with the all the changes in the migration process taking place, these are uncertain times after all.

Comment by Julie Durie on July 8, 2009 at 10:41am

To John, We are using Global visas as our agent.They started off really helpful with all the paper work, but since our application was sent in August it has been really hard finding anything out.All they keep saying to us is the DIAC don't like being contacted and give them little info to pass on.I think this is a discusting way to treat people as they are quite happy to take our money. Julie.

Comment by Fay Robin sAMIOD on July 8, 2009 at 4:34am

Thats so sad and creates a really bas impression of Australia, I'm not a migration agent but we sponsor registered nurses and the situation is if you are an RN you will get highest priority along with Doctor, Dentists etc. The rest is just a waiting game

Comment by Kim and James on July 7, 2009 at 9:36pm

Hi again - we are using The Emigation Group and they have told us that our application will not even be looked at until June 2010. If we play the waiting game will the Government do the same to us again come July next year?

Jennifer, we were told initially that we were level 4, but in the last e-mail our agent said we were level 5 so I am a bit confused too. We are applying for a 176 family sponsored general skills visa. (Primary Teacher)
Unlike you we have just sold our house in Jersey and we moved to our little holiday house in the South of France. THe house is not really big enough for 5 of us permanently but we'll manage. Our new problem, just like you is that our eldest is due to start secondary school in Sept 2010 and at the moment the boys are in French school learning French. My 8 year old is struggling and it was only supposed to be for a few months not a year and a half. It has been difficult to explain all this to them and asking them to become fluent in French is a big ask..... My husband is looking into business visas now..... He can't bear the thought of waiting so long and wants to find a quicker way to get there. My youngest is due to start school in September and it looks as if she will also have to learn French quickly.... It's stressful and we only came down her to sell the house and move on..... My husband has resigned his post and will need to find another job in December..... We really couldn't take much more. It's a good job the sun is shining!
If you have any helpful new it would be great to hear from you or anyone else.

Comment by jennifer salter on July 7, 2009 at 8:53pm

Hi everyone - the agents we are currently using are Go Matilda. We chose these as our good friends who emigrated 3 years ago used them and I new they were reputiable and did a good job for my friend. However I think that my friends were lucky and chose to go at the right time. my agents contacted me again yesterday advising that it is likely that we may not get our application looked at until June 2010 (which would mean 23mths) - they just could not advise us due to all the changes that had taken place. I told them we would rather wait in this country for 2 more years rather than go to WA under state sponsor and then, as others have said, take our children away from school, where they will be just settling and take them over to Brisbane which is our desired spot due to friends already being there and expect my children to re-settle all over again. My middle child will be starting secondary school in Sept 2010 and I really wanted to be in Australia before this time so that both boys could be in a school together (the younger being 8) because they would have each other for support.
We have now resigned ourselves to the fact that we will, at some point in our lives get a visa but goodness knows when, we have today removed our house from the market - this is one thing i am grateful for is that we did not sell and rent somewhere just to be receiving this news now. Our medicals were advised by DIAC and chest x-rays will expire on 12th September, medicals 28th Sept and police checks in Nov - as you will know, these are costly and a total of £900 was spent - just to be wasted! our agent did state that the DIAC may consider extension of these for 6mths but I dont expect our visa to have been looked at within that time scale so do not anticipate extensions applying to us! I am totally exhausted by the whole thing and like you have all rightly stated - the whole families life is put on hold and nothing can be planned based around not knowing where you will be this time next year! We are attending the seminar in Cardiff this weekend so am sure that we will meet many more people in the same boat!

Comment by Simon Smith on July 7, 2009 at 7:39pm

John, on the topic of timings, perhaps the emigration checklist should be updated to reflect more realistic timescales - whatever they may be! Long and frustrating waits seems to be the norm, 18 mths after sending my details to my agency and with my skills on the CSL I was finally given a case officer seven weeks ago and progress is still extremely slow with no feedback. Perhaps an agent out there would like to give their view on their relationships held with DIAC and the feedback they receive? My original agency (Immigration Unit) went under earlier this year so they probably cannot comment.

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