Australian 12 month tourist visa

Question

Can anyone tell me about how long you have to be out of Australia before you can apply for a second 12 month tourist visa Many Thanks

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My son and his girlfriend will be going over there on a temp work visa, so I want to go with them. They will try to eventually apply to be come permanent residents after 4 years and then sponsor me as a parent if they got residential status. My Uk property will be sold, so I would be living on the interest from the sale

Answer 1

Assuming you had/have a Visitor (sub class 600) - Tourist (Outside Australia), the conditions of your visa are:

• 8101 - No work
• 8201 - Maximum three months study
• 8501 - Maintain adequate health insurance
• 8503 - No further stay
• 8531 - Must leave before visa expiry
• 8558 - Non resident https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/already-have-a-visa/check-visa-details-and-conditions/see-your-visa-conditions

The non resident condition prohibits a stay for more than 12 months in any 18 month period. So as @jcaron commented, if you stayed the full 12 months, you need to wait at least 6 months before you return.

However, depending on your personal circumstances and your reason for wanting to return relatively soon after a lengthy stay, it may not be that straightforward.

Answer 2

You are very unlikely to be able to use a visitor visa in your circumstances. What you want to do is emigrate to Australia, and this will probably become quite obvious to consular or border officers as soon as they look at your situation.

The tourist visa description explicitly states:

You must

• intend to come to Australia to visit only

And

Be a genuine visitor

You must only intend to:

• stay temporarily in Australia

(Emphasis mine in both)

Once they notice you don’t have any ties in the UK (no work, no property), ties in Australia (your son and his girlfriend), that they themselves intend to emigrate, it would be quite normal for them to reject your visa outright.

You should probably consult an Australian immigration lawyer to determine the best route for you, but unless you intend to go back and forth between the UK and Australia and spend less than half of your time in Australia, I doubt a tourist visa is the right path for you.

Also remember that living in Australia is not quite cheap (though it varies a lot with the location). Living off the interest on the capital from the sale of your property in the UK, while still maintaining the value of that capital in the current relatively high inflation period, may be a lot more difficult than you think.