Taking Our Thai-Born Daughter To Oz

[xerostar]

I am an Oz citizen by birth.My Thai wife holds an Australian Permanent Resident Visa.

Our daughter was born last October in Thailand.

We will take her to Australia in July.

We will apply for a Thai passport for her at Chang Wattana next week.

I assume we need to apply for an Oz "tourist visa" for her, at the visa processing centre?

We will be applying for Oz citizenship by descent (form 118) for her after we get back to Oz.

Filling in the form 48R (application for a tourist visa) and form 956 (appointment of authorise recipient)

seems inappropriate for a 9 month old child when both parents will accompany her.

They ask questions like:

- your reason for visiting Australia?

- are you married/divorced/single?

- have you sufficient funds to support yourself while in Australia?

- Did you know you can not work while on a tourist visa?

Is there any simpler way to do this without all the paperwork?

[lectito]

Why not just do the paperwork at the Australian Embassy in Bangkok to get her registered as a Citizen By Descent, and get her an Australian Passport to travel on? It will save all the running around for visas.

[gburns57au]

To my mind, it would have been prudent to have the citizenship by descent done before travelling, then she can have an Aussie passport and you wouldnt need to worry about a tourist visa or any visa.

I take it you are bringing her for a holiday....if you are bringing her here to live then a tourist visa may not be the right visa.

Not too sure how it works if she comes here on a tourist visa and then gets Citizenship by descent in Oz....it may be that it is not a workable option.

IMO....If you are looking at a holiday then you will have to go the tourist visa route. That means she wont be able to work while she is here

I would think that if you go the tourist visa route then certain questions on the form could be answered as "Not Applicable"

Edited June 13, 2010 by gburns57au

[bridge]

To my mind, it would have been prudent to have the citizenship by descent done before travelling, then she can have an Aussie passport and you wouldnt need to worry about a tourist visa or any visa.

I take it you are bringing her for a holiday....if you are bringing her here to live then a tourist visa may not be the right visa.

Not too sure how it works if she comes here on a tourist visa and then gets Citizenship by descent in Oz....it may be that it is not a workable option.

IMO....If you are looking at a holiday then you will have to go the tourist visa route. That means she wont be able to work while she is here

I would think that if you go the tourist visa route then certain questions on the form could be answered as "Not Applicable"

Agreed.

Bridge

[xerostar]

Thanks for your replies ..

We will probably be staying in Oz for a year or two with some trips back to Thailand in between.

So are you telling me to get her a Thai Passport anyway, but don't try to get a visa from the Visa Centre?

Why would this application for a tourist visa not work?

As far as the OZ embassy is concerned she is Thai, until we apply for the citizenship and we'd have 3 months

in which to get it done ..

I assume she will need the Thai Passport if she wants to stay longer than the average tourist when she returns to Thailand too.

And she won't get an ID card until she's 15 I believe ..

Travelling with only an Australian passport will complicate matters I feel.

If I go to the Oz embassy and ask for a passport based on descent, I doubt that can that be achieved within less than 4 weeks.

[Old Croc]

The processing of citizenship and the subsequent obtaining of an Oz passport probably could be done within 4 weeks, but there is usually an extra fee for fast processing of the passport.

If it were me, I would obtain both Thai and Oz passports for the girl and use them for travel into and out of the countries of origin.

ie Thai passport in Thailand and Australian passport in Oz.

[carpy]

Get the citizenship by decent and passport the same time.I did it in the embassy in laos,and found it to be a lot faster than Bangkok.You can get the Thai passport as well if you want.But the Aussie one is the best with travel.You can get 1 year visas in an Aussie passport if they are born in Thailand.Also you will be eligable for the baby bonus and alot of other things in Australia.IE medicare.It will cost you a fortune if you need to see doctors and or a hospital whilst in Australia.There are so many advantages of an Aussie passport I would wonder why you would not do it.

[Old Croc]

He did say he would apply for citizenship once in Australia, but definately would be preferable to do it first for all sorts of reasons.

[gburns57au]

Thanks for your replies ..

We will probably be staying in Oz for a year or two with some trips back to Thailand in between.

So are you telling me to get her a Thai Passport anyway, but don't try to get a visa from the Visa Centre?

Why would this application for a tourist visa not work?

As far as the OZ embassy is concerned she is Thai, until we apply for the citizenship and we'd have 3 months

in which to get it done ..

I assume she will need the Thai Passport if she wants to stay longer than the average tourist when she returns to Thailand too.

And she won't get an ID card until she's 15 I believe ..

Travelling with only an Australian passport will complicate matters I feel.

If I go to the Oz embassy and ask for a passport based on descent, I doubt that can that be achieved within less than 4 weeks.

Firstly, If she has an Aussie passport then she wont need a visa to enter Oz...that alone saves you a heap of problems and some money as well. If she only has a Thai passport then she will need a visa to enter Oz.

If she enters on a tourist visa then she has to abide by the conditions on that visa, whether getting a citizenship by descent can be done while a tourist visa is in force or if it will cancel out that visa is something I am not sure about. I guess it depends on which visa is issued.

They also dont issue tourist visas for two year periods.

I dont see where the Thai ID card comes into it??

From the original post, why the 956 form?....I cant see the reason for that particular form.

Aussie and Thai passports will make life so much easier....she enters Oz as an Aussie citizen, no visa required and no limits on her visit.....she enters Thailand as a Thai on a Thai passport....no visa required and no time limits. Where is the complication?

Edited June 14, 2010 by gburns57au

[neverburi]

If I go to the Oz embassy and ask for a passport based on descent, I doubt that can that be achieved within less than 4 weeks.

we achieved citizenship by decent for our daughter took 5 working days

NB