5-years continuous stay visa for parents

The Coalition has promised a continuous five-year visa for parents of Australian residents, currently offered to only to those applicants on a case-to-case basis who have lodged a concurrent permanent parental visa application.

If re-elected, the Coalition will remove the requirement for these parents to have lodged a concurrent permanent parental visa application.

“The Coalition recognises that many Australians, including our growing South Asian and Chinese communities, face particular pressures through the separation of children from parents and grandchildren from grandparents,” Peter Dutton said.

“We want to help families reunite and spend time together, while ensuring that we do so in a way that does not burden Australia’s health care system,” he added.

In  order to apply for the enhanced parental visitor visa, the applicants will have to buy private health insurance from an Australian insurance provider, and they or their sponsoring family will be required to pay a bond.

Unveiling its ‘Long Stay Parental Visa’ policy, the Labor last week promised a parental visa that would allow parents of migrants a continuous stay of three years. Labor’s proposal also has the conditions a mandatory private Australian insurance policy and a $5000 bond for each applicant.

Currently, visiting parents of Australian citizens and permanent residents are allowed a continuous stay of up to 12 months.

Some members of the migrant communities had to launch a campaign in order to get political attention to their longstanding demand of a long-stay-parental-visa.

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Originally published on SBS.