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Published: March 30th 2011
I’ve had a few false starts in the old battle to get out of dreary England, in 1993 aged 21, I was on a one year working visa in New Zealand, and about to apply for PR when I decided overnight that the time wasn’t right, and I flew home to my Mummy a few days later.
In 2004 I had lunch in California with some blokes who worked at my mate Spencer’s Oil refinery, who pretty much offered me a job there and then, had they been more up with US immigration, and been a bit more willing to go the extra mile, that’s probably where I’d be now. In 2005, I had a reconnaissance trip to Canada, in advance of applying for a Permanent Residency Visa.
None of these panned out, and I know why that was, but it’s a little too personal for these pages, I had just written it all out, bared my soul, so to speak, and given the exact reasons, but I’ve just deleted about 4 paragraphs of introspective self analysis, this blog isn’t the right place for it, sorry about that.
Anyway! We’ve finally got over the winning line, and got our permanent residency!
As you’ll no doubt remember from the last blog, In January, we got our Criminal Record checks back (both clean) and passed our medicals, the winning post was in sight. Then things started moving really fast. In early Feb we were allocated a case officer who looked at all our documentation we’d uploaded in support of our application. She emailed and asked for further evidence of my work experience in my last job, P60’s References etc, several frantic emails, phone calls and faxes later, and the information was uploaded to our application and we edged a little closer to our dream! 3 weeks ago, we got the penultimate piece of the visa jigsaw, an email from immigration asking us to leave Australia as our application was ready to be granted, they asked for our itinery and told us we’d have to get a visa label in our passports from the Australian consulate. Because of the type of visa we applied for it meant we’d have to leave Australia. There are two types of GSM (general skilled migration) visas, Onshore (if you are already in Australia) and Offshore (if you are outside Australia) We applied while we were still living in England, and so we were classed as offshore applicants, even though we were living in Australia during the processing. This is allowed by immigration, but the downside, if it even is a downside (Sitting here typing this in Bali, in our private villa next to our private pool, I think not!) Is offshore visas can only be granted when both applicants are out of the country. So we very hastily booked a trip to Bali (I know hard life isn’t it) informed the immigration dept, and looked forward to our holiday like no other holiday before it.
We were told that it would take 3 working days once we’d left, for our Visa grant email to come through. It took just 2 days, and so that morning we took a death defying taxi ride through the back streets of Bali, we were informed by our driver that there was “plenty traffic” on the main roads and so we took the back roads to the Australian Consulate in Denpasar. I like to be prepared and got the address, opening hours and all the details of visa “evidencing” as it’s called, I had all the paperwork we needed. We arrived at the consulate, Verlie was a gibbering wreck after our taxi ride, I tend to be calmer, as I think that percentage wise if we are involved in an accident, there’s a 95% chance it’ll be with a scooter, and we’ll come to no harm at all. We dismissed our taxi driver, and walked to the consulate to be met with a very shouty Balineese lady who informed us that they no longer did visa evidencing at the consulate, it was now a separate office a couple of km’s away. Cursing them for not updating their website with this critical piece of info, we wandered off in search of another taxi, holding a map, like total tourists! We eventually got to the visa application office, at first I was unsure the driver had the right address, we appeared to be on some kind of industrial estate, no shops, just a few run down offices and buildings that looked about ready to give up the struggle to remain upright. Sure enough there was the office, and after a security screening we were allowed in, and handed over our visa grant letter and our passports. We were given a website with tracking information, so we knew when we could come back and collect our passports, with that golden ticket attached!
2 days later, our passports were ready and we repeated the journey, it was worse this time. Like a Balineese version of The Fast and Furious! (Originally I had Bullit instead of Fast and Furious, but I was worried that the reference would be missed!) Our driver seemed blissfully unaware of the "rules" of the road, and at one point when we pointed out that he was going the wrong way down a one way street, he just laughed...........I thought about the irony of dying, on the way to the consulate, where the rest of our lives were supposed to begin.
So that’s when our dreams of becoming Australian Residents were realised, sitting on the steps outside a crusty old building, on an industrial estate in Denpasar, Bali. We both scrambled to open the envelopes to finally see the label in our passports, it was real, we had done it. It had started over 2 years ago, the day I got the sack from my job at Petroplus, I’d sat down in-front of my laptop and started mapping out the steps we’d need to take to make this happen. All those daydreams, all that planning, worrying, stressing out, the roller coaster ride of emotions that is a permenant residency application for Australia, was over.
It still hasn’t sunk in properly, and it’s been a few days now. I think it’s because the visa process is structured the way it is, it’s been lots of little victories, rather than one big one. It’s been a 6-0 thrashing as opposed to a last minute winner, and we knew we’d won just before half time!!
We’ve had a lot of questions from friends and family about what we can actually do on this visa, the conditions are as follows:
1. We can live and work in Australia for the rest of our lives.
2. In the first 5 years, we must live in Australia for at least 2 years
3. We can leave and re-enter Australia as often as we wish (provided we comply with point 2) for the first five years.
4. If, after five years we want to leave and re-enter Australia, we must apply for a returning residents visa.
5. After 2 years residency, we are able to apply for Citizenship.
6. Citizenship will give us, an Australian Passport, and dual nationality. IE we retain our British Passports and Nationality. There will be no need to apply for returning resident visas, Citizenship will be as if we were born in Australia.
7. It is perfectly legal and allowed for us to Leave Australia on our Australian Passports and Enter UK on our British Passports.
8. We are able to sponsor Permenant residency visa applications from family members, brothers/sisters and parents.
So In 2 years we are able to apply for Australian Citizenship and get Australian passports, we get to keep our British Passports and have dual nationality. I think there is some sort of Australian test, an interview and a ceremony where you are kind of sworn in, I don’t know I haven’t researched that far into it!
So what are our immediate plans......Well Verlie has a 30th birthday blog to write, which she will get around to this week, I'll keep pestering her. Anyway Verlies blog will contain within it our very exciting plans for the next few months upto July at least............
My Dad travelled a lot when he was younger, he saw a lot of the world, and inspired me to do the same, he also encouraged me to get a trade when I left school, something that I didn’t know then, that trade opened up the way for me, to do all the awesome things I’ve done with my life so far, including our Australian residency. If he had his time again, he will tell you (as he has told me on many occasions) he would have emigrated to Australia or New Zealand many years ago. He never quite made it, but he has always encouraged me and constantly tells me I’ve done/am doing the right thing. Even though it means he never sees me and Verlie on a Sunday for tea, and we never get to play golf together. He won’t get to see his future grandchildren that often, but he knows it’s best for us and our future family.
Going back to the paragraphs I deleted earlier, my need to make him proud was one of the driving forces behind me and this visa application............I’ve done it Dad, and I couldn’t have done it without you.
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Victoria Hughes
non-member comment
Yay!
I read your post with mixed feelings, Mark. Firstly, so many congratulations to you both for getting PR in this fabulous country. There is nothing easy about uprooting yourselves from the country of your birth, your family and friends and embarking on a massive adventure with the person you love. That on its own is a massive acheivement but coupled withthe paperwork, red tape, logistics etc, it is made ten times harder than it needs to be. You've both completed the necessary 'challenges' in order to be awarded PR and it's paid off. From a selfish standpoint, I seee all this stertching before us! I do view this comment, however, with the same derision I view the comments of people who say 'Oh you're so LUCKY! I wish we could do that....' Erm. You can. It's just not going to fall into your lap. Just make the effort. Thank you for your advice and support - both on this blog and via email. Although our situation is slightly different from yours, I would love to be able to come back to you in 18 months and be sharing the same happy news with you! Now get back to your poolside cocktail, don't let me keep you.....