Australia: Parent visa logjam grows, wait time hits 31 years

If overseas-born Australians want to sponsor a parent to join them permanently in Australia, they can go down one of two routes.

The expensive path is a contributory parent or aged parent visa with a price tag of close to $50,000 per person. The cheaper option is a standard parent or aged parent visa, which costs “only” $5,125, but takes much longer.

The government sets an annual cap of 8,500 parent visas, with about eight in 10 granted to “contributory” applicants. This is 4,000 more places than the Coalition granted in its last year in office, but is still way too few to meet demand.

As a result, the logjam grows. On June 30, 2023, Home Affairs had 140,615 parent visa applications on hand. A year later, it was 151,596.

A year ago, Home Affairs advised new applicants that a contributory parent visa “may take at least 12 years to process”. Now it says the time frame is 14 years. This is ridiculous, but the wait for the cheaper, standard visa is beyond absurd – it’s now stretched to 31 years.

Many applicants will die before their cases are considered. They, and...

Read more