In this case, we successfully assisted our client (H. Leung) in overturning a decision made by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (“DIBP”) to refuse to grant the visa applicant (J. Wu) a subclass 600 Visitor visa. Ms Wu originally applied for the visa for the purposes of attending her mother in law’s funeral and supporting her husband, Mr Leung. However, the DIBP was not satisfied that Ms Wu genuinely intended to stay in Australia on a temporary basis pursuant to cl.600.211 of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994, which is an essential criteria for the grant of the visa. Due to the refusal, Ms Wu could not attend the funeral, however still wished to visit Australia to celebrate Chinese New Year with Mr Leung.
Accordingly, we represented Ms Wu and Mr Leung in an application to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (“AAT”) for review of the decision. Although there was evidence before the AAT indicating that Ms Wu had a strong incentive for her to remain in Australia due to her family and employment, we provided strong and persuasive evidence in our submission to outweigh this. We provided evidence that Ms Wu had a flawless immigration history, indicating that she would also be likely to comply with the Visitor visa. We also submitted that Ms Wu had no intention of overstaying her visa or engage in any other activity which would jeopardise her pending Partner visa review application before the Tribunal. Further, we submitted the fact that Mr Leung was prepared to lodge a security bond of $10,000 for Ms Wu to visit Australia provided Ms Wu with a strong incentive to comply with the conditions of the Visitor visa.
The AAT was satisfied with the evidence we provided and found that Ms Wu genuinely intends to stay in Australia on a temporary basis, meeting the requirements of cl.600.211. The AAT remitted the application to the DIBP for reconsideration with the direction that Ms Wu meets cl.600.211 for a subclass 600 Visitor visa.
