Our total timetable was as follows:-
23 March - submitted request to WA for State Sponsorship.
29 March - documents received by WA office in Perth.
31 May - WA approved sponsorship (their web site had indicated 30 days, but they took 65 days)
5 June (11.00am) - received WA State sponsorship forms
5 June (12.15pm) - UPS collected visa application package for delivery to DIAC in Perth.
8 June - UPS tracking reported delivery to DIAC.
16 June - received official confirmation of receipt from DIAC, with Case Number etc
3 July - DIAC said financials etc OK, get health checks.
18 July - went for health checks in Birmingham (first available date when booking was made on 3 July)
7 August - Medical Centre despatched health check info to DIAC in Sydney (we had caused at least one week's delay in this because our
own GP practice had sent so many doctors on holiday at the same time that they refused to dig out some requested medical reports until
the doctors returned!)
17 August - e-mail from DIAC asking us to make our Designated Investment in WA State Treasury Bonds.
24 August - confirmation from WA that they had received the funds.
6 Sept - confirmation from WA that they had sent necessary paperwork to DIAC in Perth.
6 Sept - we sent signed Declaration document to DIAC.
11 Sept - paid Second Visa Application Charge ($8000 each) to DIAC by Debit Card.
11 Sept - DIAC sent e-mail stating visas had been granted.
So from DIAC initial appliaction receipt to DIAC granting visas was 3 months and 3 days. I have to say that DIAC themselves handled the process very smoothly and very quickly. A significant proportion of the time was in getting health checks completed (5 weeks to despatch) and in WA Treasury completing their documentation (2 weeks plus). The DIAC staff were very helpful and answered any queries without delay.
As you will see, DIAC notified us when it was time to get our medical examination. Some people do this earlier (known as 'front-loading') but remember that the medicals are only valid for 12 months so you need to be confident that everything else is in order if you want to pre-empt things.
As far as Health Insurance is concerned, we went to Medibank Private and took out their Essential Visitors Cover. One tip - they advised us to take out two separate single person covers rather than one joint cover, because the excess on the joint cover is double that on the single cover, and applies when either person makes a claim for which the excess is enforced.
You need to prove you have the cover at the time that you apply for your visa, and in practice Medibank will sign you up on payment of one month's premium, then will not take further payment until one month after you arrive in Australia.
Prescriptions (outside of hospital treatment) are covered for up to $600 per person per year. However, it is not a simple as that for anyone who has been used to the UK treatment of prescriptions. Firstly doctors can only prescribe one month's pills at a time (although they will give you a repeat prescription for say 6 months in advance). When you go to the pharmacy to get each month's pills, you pay the full cost of the pills, and then claim some back from Medibank. If the cost is less than about $30.70 you get nothing back, and if the cost is greater then you just get back the excess over the $30.70. So the cost of prescriptions is nowhere near covered in full.
There is also some controversy at the moment because some 410 people have found that if they need chemotherapy it is usually handled as a out-patient (or day patient) and so Medibank (and others) apply the $600 limit to these prescriptions - whereas the actual cost to the patient is far in excess of that and can run to many thousands of dollars. This subject is being taken up elsewhere, and we can only await the outcome.
One thing to remember when completing your visa documents - if you happen to have assets which total rather more than the amount required to prove compliance (for regional areas this is $500,000 for state sponsorship, plus $500,000 to set yourselves up here) you do not have to provide evidence of all your assets. You only have to prove you have the $1,000,000. So this makes it easier as it avoids the need to, for example, have the house valued if you can provide $1,000,000 without the house. We were in the fortunate position of being able to make do with just a small number of building society statements.
There is another significant factor in this - when you are eventually asked to send the 'designated investment' to your sponsoring State Treasury, DIAC will ask you to demonstrate that to do so you liquidated into cash some of the assets that you used to prove compliance - and they ask you to do this within 49 days of them asking you to do so. This means that if you needed to include the value of the house in order to get the $500,000 for the sponsorship, you will need to provide evidence that you have completed the sale of your house. DIAC will not issue you with a visa until you have provided the evidence.
Therefore it makes sense, if you are able, to use assets which are already liquid (e.g. building society deposits) or which are able to be readily turned into liquid form, for at least $500,000 of your declared assets.
Another thing to remember here is that if you are in a position where you don't need to prove your total assets, you don't have to include an indication of the excess on your 'statement of assets' in your DIAC application. We checked all this out with the DIAC office while we were compiling our documents, and they confirmed that, for example, we didn't even have to mention our house in the statement if we showed evidence of more than $1,000,000 assets from other sources.
The same argument applies to your statement of income. You only have to prove an income of $50,000 (regional) - so in our case we only had to send a copy of a letter quantifying my occupational pension, and did not have to quantify the interest payable from numerous savings accounts. Incidentally, the interest which will be paid on your 'designated investment' apparently qualifies if you need it to prove your income. It is a bit 'chicken and egg' because the State will not give you the exact interest rate until they receive your funds. In our case we are getting 5.9% per annum fixed rate for the four years of the investment, payable every six months.
I hope all this makes sense to you. Let me know if you need anything else.
Regards,
Howard