Immigration Forum / Australia and NZ / February 2007

Also, when Geir (a really nice Norwegian guy) did this, he ran into
strife.

Geir & his Australian wife were living in Norway.  They had a baby,
which gave Geir a year's paternity leave from his job.  The Australian
Enbassy in Berlin told them to get Geir a 12 month 676 visa and
implied that this would enable him to apply for a  Spouse visa whilst
he was in Oz.

Oh no he couldn't because they imposed Condition 8503.  They
eventually got it lifted but by the time they succeeded, the year was
almost up.  They did all the right things like a pressure group of
MPs, who apparently were unaware of but were apalled by some of the
realities with DIAC.

I gather that DIAC admitted (informally) that they had imposed
Condition 8503 specifically in order to prevent Geir from making an
onshore application for a spouse visa (a mite different from what the
Berlin crowd had said in the first place.)

The upshot is that an Australian citizen, her Norwegian husband and
their baby are now back in Norway, feeling pretty grizzly about the
way they were treated by the Department.  That is a shame, the more so
because it could have been avoided except that most of us do not
discover the potential traps in advance.  That is not our fault
because there is no reason to suppose that perfectly legitimate human
wishes might run into a barrage of often unreasonable legal traps.

Is it possible to get a Prospective Marriage visa if a divorce has
still to be finalised, Tony?

Cheers

Gill