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| My relationship with Immigration Aust. goes down |
by glenalec |
2004-01-13 20:08:09 |
This is to be cc to SMH (big Aust. newspaper) letters and my local member (who is great BTW). I've deliberately depersonalised it, since our particular case manager is likely a very nice person socially, but beaurecrats being what they are...
Also, not only are they refusing response to an email, the email before that was content-free, deliberately failing to answer any of the (quite reasonable) questions I asked. The follow-up email that is not being answered restated those questions more bluntly.
People seem to always confuse my generally polite disposition (at least at first) for weakness. Their mistake!
Grrrrr mode ON
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DIMA,
You have failed to reply to my last email in timely fashion (even allowing for the holiday break).
As you know from previous correspondence, because I have work commitments over here in China and my wife has educational commitments that must be fulfilled here in order to later become a productive member of Australian society when we eventually live there together (ie, upgrading her nursing qualifications locally in preparation for later completing a bridging course in Australia), our window of opportunity for visiting Australia this year is very brief.
As I am sure your department will be smugly satisfied, this window of opportunity has now been passed largely through your department's actions (or lack thereof). This is of minor inconvenience to us as we will now have to put off our planned visit to my family until early 2005. Not a great loss, since various members of my family have now decided to visit us here in China over the next year, Chinese visas being very efficiently and quickly processed as compared to Australian ones! (Besides, they are following your example of keeping as much money from the Australian tourism industry as possible.) We will get to see out new Nephew, born on the 10th this month, at one year old, rather than as a new-born -- a considerably more interesting age anyway.
A small loss to the Australian economy as the money we had saved for spending on the trip will now be going into either the Korean or Japanese economy depending on whether we buy HPCs from Samsung or NEC.
We will, of course, still be continuing the residency application, however the immediate urgency is no longer there. Please reply to my previous two emails promptly. I start teaching on the 16th of Feb and making the three-day round trip to Shanghai to get a JP to witness my signature on the (of dubious relevance since I am currently ex-pat, as discussed previously) form 28A will become difficult then.
Since my wife is required to travel to Australia (for a medical, we were told when we initially enquired to your department about this visa) within 12 months of the visa being granted, this will not be a problem, as we will now simply be visiting for a holiday near the end of this 12-month frame rather than near the beginning. And continue visiting Australia every year or two until we decide to remain there (which could be as soon as two years or as late as 13 years away, depending on relative economic conditions between the two countries, future children's educational needs, and other factors).
DIMA's inability to cope with this situation is now being followed by a number of persons in various public and private capacities. Although I realise this situation (wishing residency for easy travel into the country, rather than from any desire to actually live there immediately) is outside of the scope of the DIMA flip-book procedural manuals and government officials are not exactly known for being able to think outside of their top-down-defined tight constraints of procedure (not to mention that - according to my local Member's staff - Embassies and Consulates are largely a law unto themselves not even subject to the Australian Constitution, as we discovered on previous tourist visa applications) we expect better than this hiding-and-refusing-to-contact from PUBLIC servants.
I apologise that I am not some Chinese citizen who has been taught to fear governments and their lackeys and accept this sort of stonewalling gracefully. I am (again) getting quite angry with the poor performance of this department and am now swinging into activist move, hence the downward spiral of the tone of my correspondence and involvement of other interested parties. Hiding WILL NOT make the problem go away. The problem will escalate until solved. I guarantee it!
Expecting prompt reply to this and the previous unanswered email,
Glenn Alexander |
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[ Reply ] |
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Typo alert! | by Atrahasis | 2004-01-13 21:04:22 |
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I'm venting | by glenalec | 2004-01-14 14:49:07 |
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