My wife has been refused a visitor visa to Australia to visit my aging mother for Christmas.
Her application was fine except, me, the sponsor has not been deemed to be a 'settled' Australian. In short, they deem anyone who has lived outside of Australia for more than 2 years as not a settled Australian and illegible to sponsor a family member. Having been in Thailand for a number of years as a contracted international school teacher, this was a shock given that we have used this visa route before a number of times without issue.
Needless to say all this has caused emotional distress to my family, and the impending financial distress that is looming with flight refunds etc is turning all this into a nightmare. I am beginning to hate my country.
My question is has anybody seen such a refusal? There must be thousands of Australian expats out there that like to visit with their Thai wife, who have been outside of Thailand more than 2 years.