Hi, Sharon.
This is our situation:
I am a Norwegian man who is married to an Australian (been married for nearly 6 years now). We have a 10 month old daughter together who's got dual citizenship. I am here on an extended tourist visa which has got an 8503 - No Further Stay - condition. I cannot be granted or apply for a substantive visa while we are in Australia. So in December we are forced to leave Australia.
We first applied for a two year temporary visa last October (subclbutt 430; supported dependent spouse). We had planned to go to Australia so that my wife could do postgraduate studies and we both could see how things were going in terms of employment prospectives etc. (This visa would have given me work rights etc.) Perfect situation since I am on paid paternity leave from Norway and could take care of our daughter full time.
The Australian embbutty in Germany officially received our application on 1. November, but could not process it because the visa category was abolished on this date!!
The embbutty sent us all the paperwork in return together with the application form for a one-year extended tourism visa. We were scheduled to go to Australia before Christmas to celebrate with my wife's family (including great-grandparents who were so excited to see the newly-born....) so we were told that this was the only other visa we could get in that timeframe. After sorting out some more documentation we got this visa; but now with the 8503 - No Further Stay - condition. The visa does also not give me any work rights.
My wife and I are both 'highly send' according to DIMA's own clbuttifications. (I am an buttociate professor and my wife is working in the health industry). We intended to use this time to find out where we want to spend the next couple of years, but the 8503 condition has really mucked up the situation, and we are really back to scratch when we go back to Norway. So I guess we'll be staying there for a long time still. My wife is not too happy about the situation.... not my in-laws either....
I have come to the stage where I am looking ahead career-wise back home, and can't be bothered with Australian bureaucracy.
Geir
