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https://theconversation.com/parents-are-waiting-more-than-30-years-for-an-australian-visa-the-new-home-affairs-minister-needs-to-act-236312>
"If overseas-born Australians want to sponsor a parent to join them permanently
in Australia, they can go down one of two routes.
The expensive path is a contributory parent or aged parent visa with a price
tag of close to $50,000 per person. The cheaper option is a standard parent or
aged parent visa, which costs “only” $5,125, but takes much longer.
The government sets an annual cap of 8,500 parent visas, with about eight in
ten granted to “contributory” applicants. This is 4,000 more places than the
Coalition granted in its last year in office, but is still way too few to meet
demand.
As a result, the logjam grows. On June 30 2023, Home Affairs had 140,615 parent
visa applications on hand. A year later, it was 151,596.
A year ago, Home Affairs advised new applicants that a contributory parent visa
“may take at least 12 years to process”. Now it says the time frame is 14
years. This is ridiculous, but the wait for the cheaper, standard visa is
beyond absurd — it’s now stretched to 31 years.
Many applicants will die before their cases are considered. They, and their
Australian families, are condemned to live in limbo, clinging to forlorn hope.
“Providing an opportunity for people to apply for a visa that will probably
never come seems both cruel and unnecessary,” said the expert panel reviewing
the migration system."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
