Since 2016 the difference between family visa outcomes and visa places planned has been growing at an unsustainable rate. From full use of available places prior to 2016 to over 26 000 places short since the queueing time for these visas has been growing exponentially.
While the government claims that contributory parent visa applications are likely to take approximately 58 months to be released for final processing. We estimate the waiting time for an new application more likely to take upwards of 78 months.
By June 2020 there were nearly 60000 applications for contributory parents visas with only 3730 visa outcome for 2019-20. To reach the 58 month estimates there would need to be at least 12500 visa places given each year. Instead the government decreased that number by almost 40% for 2020-21
For the parent subclass 103 it could take up to 30 years to process, meaning that these families have very little chance to ever reunite...
Giving an accurate processing time is essential for families who plan on having kids as the grand parents often play a vital role.
Families also often delay making any big investment until after the partners or parents settle in Australia putting their life on hold.
For all these reasons we ask to support the Australian green party proposal to clear the parent visa backlog within three years and then cap waiting times to 12 months.