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3 days ago
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Wait times for visas to bring parents to Australia are so long that nearly 2,300 applicants died before receiving a visa in the last three years, according to the home affairs department.
The department released the data to Senate estimates, revealing that 2,297 parent visa applicants and 87 other family members, such as aged dependent relatives or carers, had died while waiting for a visa.
Processing wait times are now 14 years for a contributory parent visa, which costs $48,495 in fees, or 31 years for a general aged parent visa, which cost $5,125.
Labor increased the annual number of parent visas from 4,500 to 8,500, but applications under way have still increased from about 140,000 in mid-2023 to more than 150,000.
The migration review warned that long waits make “the probability of successful migration virtually nonexistent for many applicants”.
“Providing an opportunity for people to apply for a visa that will probably never come seems both cruel and unnecessary,” it said.
The review recommended introducing a green-card style lottery system to more fairly allocate parent visas or even to “completely [remove] access to permanent residence for parents while improving access to temporary migration”.
In his budget reply speech on 16 May, Peter Dutton pledged to cut permanent migration annually by 25% from 2024-25, from 185,00 to 140,000 for the first two years, stepping back up to 150,000 and then 160,000 over the next two.
Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of immigration, warned that “if Dutton cut the permanent intake, he’d have virtually no parents” entering Australia.
That’s because the one-third of the proposed permanent migration cap of 140,000 in the family stream would be taken up by partner visas, which are in theory demand-driven and not capped.
Rizvi said there is no political appetite to address the parental visa backlog, because of the “large” budget costs to bring non-working age parents who receive services like Medicare into Australia.
“Even with the contributory parent visa, the budget loses,” he said.
Rizvi suggested the temporary parent visa, which allows an initial stay of three to five years, “will become more attractive” given the difficulties of getting a permanent visa.
Public submissions to the migration review warned that the effect of the very slow processing is creating mental issues for both parents waiting overseas and permanent residents here in Australia.
Manu Baines is an Australian citizen with parents aged 64 and 60 who are now in Australia on visitor visas.
“It’s a three-year visa but the maximum stay is 12 months,” he said, meaning his parents have to periodically go back to India.
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Baines’ parents had been coming to Australia for eight or nine years but only applied for a contributory parent visa in May 2023 due to the cost, meaning they have a wait of at least another 12 years in front of them for a permanent visa.
“We’ve just welcomed a young daughter, four months old, into our family. There’s that constant fear – of having to live at the mercy of a good case officer to extend the visa, the constant cost of flights and medical examinations every year. It’s very inconvenient,” Baines said.
Thomas Fuchs, a 64-year-old from Switzerland, has been waiting seven years for a parent visa, after being told the wait time would be as little as 18 to 24 months when he applied.
Fuchs, who opened a hair salon employing and training Australians, came to Australia on a skilled 457 visa and was able to stay on a Covid bridging visa due to the fact he was self-sufficient. Without a parent visa he cannot access Medicare.
“Usually parents are elderly, they don’t come here to open a business and work. We are in a bit of a different situation … but once you’re placed in a queue, nobody cares if you’re providing something [to Australia] or just coming in.
“We’re worried if Peter Dutton gets into power and changes the [intake] figures, the whole process will be prolonged again.”
A departmental spokesperson said: “All visa programs, regardless of whether there is a planning level in place, are subject to limited resourcing which can result in delays in application assessment, especially in periods of increased demand.
“High volumes of permanent parent visa application lodgements, which for a number of years exceeded annual planning levels set for the program within the overall migration program, have impacted on processing times and the number of on-hand applications within these categories.”
Guardian Australia contacted Dutton for comment.
