Former SAS soldier caught in visa confusion

A briefing note prepared by RSL Victoria spells out their frustrations with the conduct of Home Affairs and an alleged error in the way a soldier’s wife’s visa application was assessed.

A decorated SAS veteran and his family are in limbo after the Department of Home Affairs refused to grant his Thai-born wife a visa.

A decorated SAS veteran and his family are in limbo after the Department of Home Affairs refused to grant his Thai-born wife a visa.

The soldier – who was awarded the nation’s second-highest military honour, the Medal for Gallantry, for his conduct in the Afghanistan War – has been living in Thailand for eight years while he works as a FIFO security contractor in the resources sector.

He has had to return to Australia for treatment for his declining mental health, but Home Affairs refused to give his wife a partner visa because the soldier was unable to secure criminal clearances from some of the countries he had worked in.

While the couple and their two Australian citizen children have been based in Thailand for eight years, his work has taken him around the world and he was unable to source the required paperwork from Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Nigeria.

A briefing note prepared by RSL Victoria spells out the family’s frustrations with the conduct of the department, and what appears to be an error in the way the application was assessed. The former soldier has been working to secure the partner visa since September 2021, but has now been told to restart the application process from scratch. It means his wife is unlikely to secure a visa before 2027 at the earliest.

He was formally notified late last year that his wife’s application had been refused due to the lack of police clearances, triggering a 21-day window for an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. According to the RSL note, the man’s health had worsened during that period and he was unable to lodge a response in time.

The RSL briefing note details how the police clearance certificate request is not mandatory, while it says there are provisions in the regulations for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to exercise ministerial discretion and approve a sponsor if there are compelling circumstances.

Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Minister Andrew Giles. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“This discretion extends to permit the minister to approve sponsorship of people with significant criminal histories,” the RSL Victoria note says. “It would be outrageous if such a discretion was not exercised to support and assist an Australian war hero with no criminal history.”

Before the application was formally rejected, the soldier had provided Home Affairs with a letter from a psychiatrist specialising in veterans’ healthcare describing how his poor mental health – stemming from his war service – hampered his capacity to negotiate the visa process.

“(The soldier) is a man who has given his country everything he has, at very great personal expense, and now finds himself held at a distance from this country,” the psychiatrist wrote.

“(He) is an exceptional individual in his commitment to our country and in his capacity as an Australian citizen. I would ask that his exceptional situation be considered in the processing of his applications.”

The RSL note argues the department erred in the scope of the police clearance request. While the regulations provide for the minister to seek clearances from countries where the sponsor or spouse has lived for at least 12 months, the department sought the paperwork from nations where the man had worked only temporarily.

“A prudent and competent visa assessment officer should have applied the facts of the case to the ample body of guiding legal precedent to reach a conclusion that while (the former soldier) may have temporarily visited these countries for the purposes of undertaking short-term work assignments of around 20 days, he never should have been regarded as living in them,” the RSL note says.

Mr Giles’s office has advised that the minister is unable to take any action until the case has been assessed by the AAT. Given the window to appeal the decision to the AAT has closed, the man will have to start a new application at a cost of $8850. That will take up to 32 months to process.

The man’s wife is in Australia on a tourist visa, and must return to Thailand once that visa expires.

A Department of Home Affairs spokesperson confirmed it was aware of the man’s situation.

“The department is looking into the matter,” the spokesperson said. “For privacy reasons, the department is unable to comment further on individual cases.”