Community Feedback on Parents Long Stay Visa Issue - please ACT NOW

Community Feedback on Parents Long Stay Visa Issue - please ACT NOW As a recent migrant and new citizen of Australia, we believe it is beneficial to Australia to honor the significant contribution by parents of new Australian Citizens and Permanent Residents by allowing a specific long stay visa for their parents. This does not include a request for a financial contribution, via access to Medicare from the Australian Tax Payer, despite the significant contribution of our parents to Australia through education and health care in the early years of the lives of new Australian citizens and permanent residents. In the interests of building a humane and socially healthy Australia, we request the following: 1. A 5 year Stay period – a visa allowing a continuous stay for 5 years. 2. No Asset test - Sponsorship's- allowing all Australian residents and citizens to sponsor parents without consideration of the duration of time in Australia or any asset test. We believe our children should have the right to live with their Grandparents, an asset test would be both discriminatory and irrelevant. 3. Re- applying - parents be allowed to re-apply for the same visa after 1 month out of Australia. 4. Minimum Bond- preference for no bond requirement but if it is necessary to protect parents in the case of incidences of elder abuse, or bereavement, then its needs to be the mini-mum only to cover the cost of return tickets home and some emergency housing in the interim ($5000 -6000 per couple) so as to not be a barrier to families. It may be payable in a lump sum, in installments, or could even be a HECS-style loan. We believe people should give all three options for more affordability. 5. No English Language test. Strongly oppose the requirement of an English language test for this visa. We see this visa as a version of a long term tourist visa. It is not a work visa. Children will be required to take care of their parents as per the bond. Just as tourists are not required to speak English nor should parents on a long stay visa. Introducing this would be an act of gross discrimination and nullify the effect of the visa. 6. Not only for aged parents – not to introduce it on basis of Age. Young children need grandparents more than anything in their young age. 7. No case by case clause. - Certainty is needed this issue. Request that there be no case by case basis clause in this visa. This clause is understood to be a requirement to maintain security, and off course there are laws already in place to protect Australia from criminal elements exerting the country, however it is concerning that it is used explicitly here. It is concerning that decision to reject the visa could be arbitrary and unclear. 8. Other considerations- regarding the question: ‘What should be done if the sponsor died or were incapacitated which deemed them by independent assessment, no long-er able to care for their parent while the parent is in Australia? In these unfortunate cir-circumstances we believe that the bond would cover a return ticket to the place of origin, where the parent is a citizen. In a rare worst-case-scenario if there be no adult member left in the family, or no person able to take care of an aged and bereaved parent in the country of origin then the Australian government should take into account the contribution the Parent has already made in their life time to by raising their child to a become a contributing citizen of Australia and use a humanitarian model to take on the care of the parent, if they should choose to remain in Australia.