Frenchy: New to the game

[Frenchy]

Hi There.

We are in our early thirties, I am a Dietician and a teacher and my husband a Electrical engineer. We have a seven month old daughter. We live in pretoria.

We love South africa, but recently decided that we do not want to bring up our child in such a unsafe environment. My husband also spend nearly all his time at work and we hope Australia can give us a less hectic life with more family time. Anybody out there that regretted the decision to move to Australia...please speak up now!!

I have been working my way through the forums. I think we can apply for the independant visa subclass 136, if that means anything to anybody. Am I right to assume that the process will take about a year to finalise? Do most people get a visa and then look for a job? Does it go quicker if you get a companty to sponsor you? How long does it take do become a citizen / permanent resident?

Where do we begin, can anybody advise on the documentation needed (birth certificates etc) Then maybe i can start on that.

I'm also confused about the medical....is it better to wait till you have a case officer appointed till you do this or when, because I read that some people waited so long for a CO that they had to redo their medical.

Sorry for the bombardment of Q's

But we need help and advice to make up our minds.

[Cindylou]

Hi Frenchy

Well, you sure do have a number of questions, some of which I'll try and help you with.

It would appear that you should be able to apply for a 136 visa (one of the Permanent Residence (PR) options), have you followed the checklist on the immi website?

The process is quite long, our application was submitted in May 2006 and we are hoping to get the thumbs up any day now. Some people have waited longer than this, although others have received an answer sooner, so you'd be wise not to get too inflexible with dates.

If you go the Temporary Residence (457) route then the process is a lot faster. Most people go over on this visa and then apply for PR once they're in Aus. You could also look at the ENS (Employer Nominated Scheme) which is also sometimes faster than the 136.

Because the PR visa takes so long most of us PR applicants only start looking for work once the visa is approved.

PR and Citizenship are two different things, if you apply for and are approved on a PR application then you have PR, in order to become an Aussie citizen you need to comply with the certain requirements. See this link for details. The law is changing soon, so read up about that too.

Your medicals are only valid for one year (you must enter Aus before your medicals expire), do not do your medical when you submit your initial application. By following the aspc processing times you can preempt the CO's request and do your medicals about two months before you are allocated a CO (about six months after applying). The Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) is also only valid for one year, so don't do that too soon either.

First thing to do: Apply for all your unabridged birth, marriage, divorce and/or death certificates. Make sure that you all have passports (that don't expire soon) and get your Skills Assessment paperwork in order. I made a pack of all the documents I required and ran off about ten copies of each document which I had a Bank Commissioner of Oaths certify for me so that I had a full pack handy for each submission. (Having certified copies of my ID has helped me so much in my normal life that I can recommend it for anyone)

And then take a deep breath and hold tight - get ready for the ride of your life!

Good luck

Cindylou

[Frenchy]

Thanks Cindylou

That was really helpful.

Frenchy