Moving to Australia Part 9

Previously….

In Part One you have the idea.
In Part Two you looked at the various Visa options.
In Part Three you looked at using a MARA Migration Agent.
In Part Four you agreed the basis of your application.
In Part Five you needed to Prove It!
In Part Six you looked at taking the dog or cat.
In Part Seven you put in your application.
In Part Eight you began waiting.

Moving to Australia – Part 9

If you recall, last time we spoke our application had already been sent and we were now waiting. Waiting for what?

We are waiting to be allocated a case officer. pending pile Moving to Australia Part Nine

Until that happens, effectively our application is in the Australian governments in tray, or pending pile.

Waiting is a strange period. Never mind decisions like should I apply for this new job? I wonder if I should buy a new car? You’ll struggle with simple decisions like should I buy this nice new jumper? Hmmm. Not sure how much longer I’ll be needing jumpers. What do you want for Christmas? Not sure, possibly some sunglasses and a hat or, depending how things go, an umbrella and some gloves. You can see the issues can’t you?

In the excellent science-fiction comedy Red Dwarf, they often talked about going into “stasis” – and stasis is an excellent word to describe this waiting period. Our period of stasis came to an abrupt and joyful end on April 27th 2007, when we received a letter informing us that we had been allocated our case officer and he had requested our police records check and medicals.

As I mentioned last week, we had been following the weekly email updates and according to that information, we were a long way away from getting a case officer. Yet, all of a sudden we had one. Excellent!

Of course, throughout this time you cannot help your own thoughts. You know that you have enough points. You know that your skill has been assessed and is valid. You know your application is sound. What is the case officer going to be looking for? I think it is fair to assume you are already three quarters of the way there. Rejection rates at this stage must be quite rare.

What can possibly go wrong?

Your medical.
Your police records check.

So at the same time we were informed we had been allocated a case officer, we were also asked to provide the above. This, of course, was good news. We knew we were going to be asked to provide this information and felt ALL we had to do now was pass them. Then surely we would be home and dry or more specifically, away and dry.

The police records check was pretty straightforward. Go to your local police station with some ID, fill in a form and pay £10 and within a couple of weeks (allow 28 days) it will be sent to your home address.

Then there is the medical.

The medical is the one part of this whole process that scares the life out of me every time I think about it. For me, the medical was the one area where I honestly thought that I was going to blow it for me and, more importantly, my family’s future.

At one very low point, I was convinced that due to “events out of my control”, I was about to unjustifiably fail my medical, and all the work of the last 18 months was going to come to nothing. It was a very nervous time indeed.

It’s a long story and I’ll tell you it all next week.

To read that long story now, go to Moving to Australia Part 10

For a full chronological list and brief description of all the posts in this series about how I moved to Australia, please visit my page How to Move to Australia.