Good news coming from DIBP
A couple of weeks ago in this space I had talked about how securing a partner visa in Australia was becoming an uphill task—with waiting times upwards of 16 months on average—and having one of the highest fees in all OCED countries. Our cover story in ME magazine, too, is on the same issue this time.
Guess what, some ray of hope is beginning to emerge. The DIBP has sent out a communication wherein it talks about how the department is trying to fulfil targets before the financial year closes on June 30. At the same time it says the DIBP is digressing from the set pattern of granting partner visa according to its lodgement date.
The communication says: “We will be giving priority to low-risk applicants and those regarded by DIBP as fully front-end loaded with documentation that immediately satisfies Partner criteria. This will result in a departure from our usual chronological method of assessing applicants by month of lodgement. Therefore, you may find that some visa applicants may receive decisions ahead of others who had lodged many months prior. This triaging approach has been endorsed by the Executive as an efficiency measure to identify partner applications which are potentially of the highest quality and lowest risk for visa places this programme year.”
It is indeed heartening that the DIBP has finally realised that not all partner visa cases are an act of fraud and many cases are genuine and require fast disposal.
