Tribunal ‘troubled’ over bid for 6yo overseas boy to visit Tas after mum tried to bring him in-utero

The federal government has barred a visit to Tasmania from a six-year-old Pakistani boy – after his mother previously tried to travel to the island while she was eight months pregnant with him.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal building in Melbourne. Picture: Ian Currie

The federal government has barred a six-year-old Pakistani boy from visiting his aunty in Tasmania “to see some Australian wildlife”, finding he would be unlikely to leave.

The boy’s mother was previously also refused a visitor’s visa to visit Australia back in 2017, when she was eight months’ pregnant with him.

According to a newly-published Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia decision, a Minister for Home Affairs delegate first refused the boy’s visitor’s visa application back in September 2022 – finding they weren’t satisfied there was a genuine intention for a temporary visit.

The delegate found the boy had stronger ties in Australia than back in Pakistan.

The boy and his aunt – his godmother and legal guardian who runs an Australia Post post office in Tasmania – then applied to the tribunal to review the decision.

Tribunal member Paul Windsor noted at the time of the boy’s visa application, it was indicated that he stay in Australia for up to three months – but then the stated proposed visit dates were for an eight-month period.

The boy’s father, giving evidence to the tribunal, first said he hadn’t sought an Australian visa in the past, before indicating that he had, “a long time ago”.

He said at the time, he and his wife were hoping to travel to Australia to visit his sister, commenting his wife was in her second month of pregnancy.

But the tribunal said the visa application was made shortly in September 2017, shortly before the boy’s birth in November that year.

Mr Windsor said this suggested the boy’s father “may have been planning that he and his family remain in Australia permanently rather than visit temporarily as claimed”.

“The tribunal queried why he sought to travel to Australia at a time when his wife would have been eight-months pregnant, unless it was proposed she have the child in Australia, which suggests they were planning that the whole family might remain in Australia,” Mr Windsor said.

The boy’s father replied that was not the case and that “hundreds of people” travel in such circumstances “with no problems”.

“The tribunal suggested that, if the visa had been granted, his wife would have had to give birth to the visa applicant in Australia,” Mr Windsor said.

The boy’s aunty and uncle said that for the current visa application, they just wanted the boy to visit for a short visit of about two weeks to “get to know about the culture and wildlife in Australia”.

In dismissing the review, Mr Windsor said the tribunal was “troubled” by several elements of the family’s arguments, saying he was not satisfied the boy would only visit Australia temporarily if granted a visa.

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