Matt Down Under
Ruby developer, founder of choc media, bushwalker, MacGyver fan and hobby photographer, German citizen and Australian Permanent Resident.
In 2008 I moved from Germany to Australia, the best decision of my life. On this blog you can find stories and photos about hiking in Tasmania and on the mainland, travelling, and life in Australia — my journey from Working Holiday to Permanent Residency.
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15 posts tagged Visa
I’m a Permanent Resident of Australia
I applied for permanent residency
Tuesday was a special day. Not only was it my dad’s birthday, but it also was exactly two years since I received my current provisional visa which allows me to stay in Australia for up to three years. It allows me to apply for permanent residency once I have lived for at least two years and worked for at least one year in Tasmania — it is bound to a regional state sponsorship from the Tasmanian government.
With Tuesday this week, I have fulfilled all requirements, therefore I started the application process for a permanent visa that allows me to work everywhere in the country without limitations. It’s not that I’m keen to leave Tasmania as soon as possible — the reason I don’t want to lose time is merely because I’m interested in a secure future. It’s just so difficult to make any longterm plans unless I know I will be allowed to live in Australia permanently. I would so love to spend the rest of my life here, I can’t imagine a better place to live.
I thought it would maybe take me a few days to complete the application (last time it took me 6 months), but after only one small issue that was quickly resolved on the DIAC hotline, I managed to complete the application form yesterday, paid the fee, attached some of the required documents and submitted it. Now I can only wait for a response from a case officer, who will hopefully tell me which documents exactly I still need to send in. There’s a bit of confusion around that.
Fingers crossed!
The second winter in Tasmania
There’s not much activity here at the moment. It’s winter in Tasmania and I don’t feel like doing a lot of outdoor activities while it’s cold out there. I’m a summer guy and at the moment I’m simply focusing on working and see how things develop.
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I made it!
Yesterday my new visa was granted.
Suddenly everything went so fast. I few weeks ago I finalised the required medial documents and since I hadn’t heard anything from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) I already started to be worried. It would have been a nightmare if the documents would have gone lost in transit.
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About retrospection, fubar companies and flash-hiking
There’s quite a lot to tell. The last few weeks were probably the most crazy ones I had since I based myself here. Hopefully you don’t mind that I put this all into one big post.
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Visa application lodged!
Wow, after more than six months of preparations, I finally lodged my visa application today. Incredible how much work was necessary to get to this point, I can understand everyone who simply hires a migration agent to do all the work. When I started to think about applying for a new visa in Australia I was thinking about a second Working Holiday Visa first and it took me countless hours to read all the documentation, information, conditions etc. to figure out if I am eligible for a real skilled working visa and which one I need.
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Overland Track Preparations
Last Friday we had our annual office christmas party. First we went bowling, then we had dinner at a pretty crowded mexican restaurant and when certain people became too drunk for any further activities, most of us decided to go home. Nice evening with excellent food though.
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The next milestone
I’m back in Launceston, but only for the weekend. Right now I am sitting on the UTAS campus and wait for the last part of my IELTS English test, which is part of my visa application. I just finished the listening, reading and writing parts and now I have about two hours until the speaking part begins.
So far I have a very good feeling, I didn’t have any problems except the short time on the last part where you need to write two short essays to given topics.
I should have some credit for the speaking part by now, I don’t need to score the best possible grades anyway.
The only annoying thing is that it will take about two weeks until I get the results… :(
