If you are committed to your Filipina lady……GENUINELY committed….then an Australian Partner Visa (or a Prospective Marriage Visa) is right for you. If not? Then don’t try! The relationship must be have your total commitment otherwise you shouldn’t be applying in the first place.

Bottom line? Australian visas of all types are GRANTS, and are not RIGHTS. As an Australian Citizen (or permanent resident), you have the right to live freely in Australia. You do NOT have the inherent right to bestow permanent residency status on someone else. It’s not your decision to make. That power is constitutionally held by the Federal Government and administered through the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. And they fulfil what the Australian people expect of them, and that is to only allow those in who deserve to be let in. If you have a genuine and committed relationship, then you may sponsor your wife/partner/fiancée to get permanent residency in Australia. No commitment = no visa.

If you do NOT have a genuine and committed relationship, then your partner has no right to gain permanent residency in Australia. Simple as that.

If you’re not committed yet, then you should be looking at an Australian Visitor Visa (aka Tourist Visa) for a temporary stay. And that’s perfectly OK. Some relationships develop quickly, and others take time. And if your relationship is one where you think you will never develop an absolute commitment, then you’re probably also best suited for a tourist visa.

Are all long-term relationships “committed” relationships?

Not all. Not everybody’s cup of tea, however there exist those who are either not looking for a soul mate, or they just haven’t found one and have no commitment at all. Some are so jaded by previous relationship failures that they can’t allow themselves to let go. And you get others who are quite frankly fairly misogynistic by nature, and this is reflected in the type of relationship they form. They’re in it for the comforts they get, but they have no intention of forming a “shared-life” with the lady.

And commitment means “shared-life”, where two become one. Shared-life means an exclusive relationship (ie. to the exclusion of all others).

It’s usually demonstrated by:

• Joint decisions
• Joint finances (ie. joint assets, joint bank accounts, sharing of property)
• Joint domestic arrangements (ie. living together, or “not apart on a permanent basis”)
• Being known and accepted publically as a committed couple
• A future intertwined with each other
• Making babies and building a family
• Usually a joint-identity, with same last-name
• Not having built-in easy “escape routes” where one or both partners can leave very easily if they change their minds!

It’s not always exactly like the above, and not everyone gets married. Some form de facto relationships, and that’s OK from a partner visa perspective, but de facto relationships MUST be able to demonstrate commitment! If a couple have lived together for years but still maintain strongly separate practices in their lives, then it won’t hold up. And if you are only really adverse to marrying THIS particular woman, then maybe there is a commitment issue here?

And no, making-babies is not sufficient proof. I think we all know a few men both in Australia and here in the Philippines who’ve made babies without any commitment. Regular sex and sharing a bed isn’t sufficient proof either.

Relationships where there is a lack of commitment (allow me to generalize here!) are often where there is a large age-gap, where the man still keeps his finances, business dealings, assets and social life separate and prefers to keep her in the dark. Definitely not “always” and not even “often”. We see far more committed couples with large age gaps than we see otherwise, however it does happen. Don’t be too surprised if we tell you we will have some trouble in demonstrating you have a strong case when in fact you do not have a strong case at all! You won’t get any BS from Jeff Harvie!

Please give your relationship some serious thought before considering a partner visa. If you can’t see yourself changing from “me” to “us”, then you’re simply not ready. If you can and really want this? Then bite the bullet and contact Down Under Visa to make the visa application process as smooth as silk!