Hi tking,
I don't know your personal circumstances, so these are just some thoughts I am throwing out:
1. You are expecting to get your 136 visa in eight weeks? Then you'll be disappointed (unless there is a drastic change at DIMIA). At the moment, 136 MODL visas take about 5-6 months from lodgement date to grant date (and that is with the applicant doing everything as fast as possible and there being no problems).
2. There are risks attached with front-loading police checks (PCCs) and medicals as you are planning: Your first entry date into Oz with the visa must be within 12 months from the date of the PCCs or medicals (whichever was done earlier). And people whom DIMIA deem to have health problems only get 6 months instead of 12 months!
So, going to your suggested timeline, if you got back the UK PCCs in Dec 2005, then submitted the visa application in June 2006, got the visa grant in November 2006, you may end up with a maximum of three to four weeks to move to Oz (or go there on a validation trip). This could give you some serious problems!- Alternatively, your UK PCCs may be out of date by the time your file gets looked at, in which case your CO will ask you to get new ones!
With regards to the medicals: you can't do them until you've got a case file reference number from DIMIA. And you won't get that until after you've lodged the visa application. (The case file ref no goes on the front of the forms for the medical; that way DIMIA can marry up the medicals with the rest of your papwerwork).
What a lot of people do (us included), is to keep a close eye on timelines of people who have submitted their application in the previous three months. Then gauge when DIMIA are likely to ask for PCCS and medicals. Then get the medcials and PCCS done just before that date and send them to DIMIA in time for the likley date - in the hope that this speeds things up.
When we applied, DIMIA seemed to be asking for PCCS and medicals at around week 16. So, we made sure that our PCCS and medicals were done and sent off to DIMIA by week 14 (by then we had the case file reference number, so there was no problem doing the medicals before DIMIA requested them).
I hope the above makes sense.
Good luck with the PhD.
Gina
--
