Navjot Singh Kailay is all-too familiar with the “horror stories” of Australia’s family visa system.
The families facing decades-long wait times for an ageing parent to be able to settle with their loved ones. Australians stuck in a visa limbo that causes mental anguish and financial hardships.
Singh, who has been a migration agent in Melbourne for almost a decade, says some clients’ parents have died while waiting for their parent visas to be processed.
“There are so many things involved that are hard to digest,” he says. “Sometimes parents die while waiting for their permanent residency.”
Wait times for visas to bring parents to Australia are so long that more than 1,500 applicants died before receiving their visa over a 21-month period to 31 March, new Department of Home Affairs data shows.
Reports of an upcoming overhaul of the nation’s migration system, including tougher rules for family visas, has intensified worry among Australians whose parents are waiting for their visas to be processed.
For applicants of non-contributory parent visas, which provide permanent residency for a fee of just under $9,000, the wait times are now an estimated 33 years.
Contributory parent visas have waiting times of about 15 years but cost almost $50,000 each.
Ji Tu, a Sydney-based surgical trainee, says Australia was his first choice to raise his family and build a career. But as the father of two faces years of uncertainty over when his parents will be able to settle permanently in Australia, he says he has considered moving abroad.
“What’s the point if I just stay here taking care of the old Australian patients, but I couldn’t take care of my own parents?” he says. “We want to continue building our lives and careers in Australia but we also hope our children can grow up surrounded by their grandparents.”
Tu’s parents, aged 57 and 67, are in Australia’s parent visa queue, which has a decades-long backlog for some categories.
Tu has been waiting more than three years for his parents to have their applications processed. While in China, the pair lodged applications for contributory parent visas.
According to the current wait times, Tu’s parents’ visas will not be processed until at least 2038 – when his oldest child is almost 15.
For Tu and his wife, having parental support allows them to manage demanding work hours while raising their two children.
“It’s mental support and extra support for our new immigrants,” he says. “Essentially this could help us … work and to build our career in Australia.”
His parents are in Australia on temporary visas but are required to leave for six-month stints every 18 months. “My parents are getting older. I’m really anxious about it,” he says.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, this week delayed a speech at the National Press Club where he was due to reveal a migration overhaul. But Labor is still expected to introduce new rules to cut net overseas migration and push some temporary residents to leave Australia.
The proposed reform includes preventing spouses, children and parents of Australian citizens from applying for visas while in the country as tourists, the ABC reported.
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‘They need somebody looking after them’
Ruby Liu, a 33-year-old engineer, has been waiting seven years for her 69-year-old mother’s contributory visa application to be processed. Her father died in a car accident about five months after the pair lodged their applications from China in 2019.
Liu says she fears a ministerial direction prioritising family visa applications made onshore will mean her mother’s offshore application is deprioritised.
“This worries me every day,” she says.
Liu’s mother lived in Australia on temporary visas after her husband’s death but returned to China in February after her visa expired. She often tells her daughter, an only child, that she longs to return home to the Sydney unit they shared.
“It’s a huge pressure on me because I cannot change the policy,” she says. “When … parents get old … they need somebody looking after them.”
Department of Home Affairs data, provided to Senate estimates last month, revealed that between 1 July 2024 and 31 March 2026, 1,536 parent visa applicants died while waiting for a visa.
At the end of the 2024-25 financial year, there were more than 157,000 applicants in the parent visa backlog, the department’s latest annual report shows. This financial year, the annual allocation for parent visas fell from 8,500 to 7,060.
Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of immigration, said Australia had the “harshest parent [visa] policy of any comparable nation on the planet”.
He said the reported overhaul showed the federal government was worried that people were using a visitor visa pathway to enter Australia and then apply for a parent visa onshore, enabling them to remain on a bridging visa for decades. “That is what they want to stop,” he said.
A 2023 expert review of Australia’s migration system warned that long waiting periods make “the probability of successful migration virtually nonexistent for many applicants”.
Referring to wait times for parent visas of 30 to 50 years given the age of applicants, it said: “Providing an opportunity for people to apply for a visa that will probably never come seems both cruel and unnecessary.”
The Department of Home Affairs was approached for comment but did not respond by the deadline.
