The Indian community has welcomed the new parent visa policy of the Labor party however concerns remain over the minimum income threshold for sponsoring parents on the new visa.
Arvind Duggal of the Long Stay Parent Visa committee that ran a campaign for a special visa for parents says changes announced by Labor give “a lot of relief” to migrants wanting to reunite with their parents.
“The biggest disappointment in the new visa was the fee which Labor’s policy is addressing and people have been largely positive about where Labor has set it,” he told SBS Punjabi.
“We have always been supportive of a reasonable fee, and this seems like a reasonable fee”.
Labor announced on Monday that it will slash the fee for the newly introduced temporary sponsored parent visa by 75 per cent - $2,500 for a five-year visa and $1,250 for a three-year visa from the current fee of $10,000 and $5,000. A Labor Government will also remove a cap of 15,000 visa places and allow families to sponsor both sets of parents which is restricted to just one under the existing visa.
"This is about making sure that people from migrant and multicultural communities can get time and love and affection with their grandparents," Labor's immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann told reporters in Sydney.
"The current government has not listened to their voices and put in an unfair process and haven't delivered the visa."
However, Labor has not announced any changes to the income threshold of $83,454.80 for visa sponsorship which may leave many migrant families ineligible for this visa.
Inderdeep Kaur Sandhu is a cancer survivor and is in critical need of family support. She had been keenly looking forward to having her mother in law in Australia on this visa but fears this may not happen now.
Source: AAP
“I had to quit my job due to my medical condition and my husband’s single income is below the required income level to apply for this visa,” Ms Sandhu told SBS Punjabi.
The 40-year-old Melbourne mother was working as a barista before she was diagnosed with cancer last year which left her unable to work. Until March this year, her mother-in-law was in Australia to help with taking care of her kids.
“Not just household work, she was a great emotional support too,” she says.
But Ms Sandhu’s mother in law had to leave in March this year before her visa ran out and she has been without any family support since then.
The Sandhus with their two children say the Coalition's new parent visa will not allow them to reunite their children with their grandparents. Source: Supplied
“It would be nice to have her here to support me because with my condition, I don’t know when my time’s up. But unless the income requirement is changed, there’s no way we can apply for her visa,” she says.
“Many people will say ‘if you don’t have sufficient income, how will you bear the expenses’. But we have been doing it when my mother-in-law was here on a visitor visa for two years,” she adds.
Mr Duggal says this is something that will affect many other families too.
“There are a lot of families where women want to get into the workforce but are waiting for the grandparents to be with them and care for the kids or with some other circumstances, they shouldn’t be left out,” he says. “In my opinion, income threshold should be lowered so that more families can benefit from this visa.”
Arvind Duggal has been a long-term campaigner for the parent visa. Source: Supplied by Arvind Duggal
The new visa was promised by the coalition government before the 2016 federal election after Labor announced its policy for a 3-year visa for parents of migrants. The visa is finally being made available this year after it got caught up in legislative delays. Applications for parent sponsorships opened last week and visa applications will be accepted from July this year.
