Advice for Mary Bonnet and Jack Chan

Issues faced by Mary Bonnet

Mary Bonnet

Mary, a Canadian citizen, met Dave, an Australian citizen, when Dave was travelling around Europe 2 years ago. They started a relationship online and Mary came to Australia in December 2018 on a 417 working holiday visa. Three months after she arrived in Australia, in March 2019, she moved in with Dave as his partner.

Mary has never been married or had a de facto relationship before. Dave is 10 years older than Mary and he previously was in a relationship with an Australian but that relationship broke up about three years ago. His former partner had been granted an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) by a Local Court in Sydney against Dave.

After living together for seven months by October 2019, Mary decided to get advice about her visa which was due to expire in 2 months. Mary was advised she could apply for a de facto partner visa after 12 months together, or if she and Dave registered their relationship, then she could apply sooner. Dave was reluctant to register the relationship, fearful the AVO might somehow be disclosed, but he eventually agreed as Mary said her visa was about to finish in about 2 months and she could not stay unlawfully in Australia. Their relationship was registered and Mary lodged a partner visa online in November 2019. Mary was issued a bridging visa A and that started in December 2019 after her working holiday visa ceased. In early April 2020, Dave and Mary had another fight about Dave’s drinking. Dave was working from home because of COVID19 and he started drinking more. Mary said he drank too much and became aggressive. Dave said she was being silly and he yelled at her. Dave is very fit and played football every weekend before they had to stop due to social isolation. Mary is smaller than Dave and when Dave gets angry, she becomes afraid of him because he is so much bigger and stronger than she is. On 25 September l 2020, Dave drank quite a lot of alcohol whilst speaking for an hour or so with his mates on the phone, and then threatened Mary that he would ‘send her back to cold Canada’ because she kept complaining about his drinking whilst he was talking with his mates. He also said Mary could be ‘kicked out’ because he said their relationship was now over and he would tell Immigration. Dave yelled at Mary as she left that she was a whinger, just like his ex-partner. Dave told Mary to get out of the home, so Mary went by taxi and stayed with her best friend Kim, who was one of her partner visa witnesses. Kim told Mary she should call the police but Mary was afraid she would be kicked out as Dave threatened.

Granting a partner visa despite relationship cessation

Kim told Mary about Dave’s ex-partner claiming that Dave had threatened her, but Kim did not believe Dave’s former partner at the time because Kim thought she was saying it just to get even with Dave for breaking up with her. Now Kim thinks that Dave’s former partner was telling her the truth and Mary is even more afraid of Dave now. Mary says she does not want to go home even if she could, her family were already unhappy that she was just living with Dave and had not married in the church. Mary said she came from a very traditional and conservative family and would be ostracized because of living with Dave before getting married to him. Kim is a psychologist and offered to get help for Mary from another psychologist and counsellor she knows. Kim explains she cannot do a report for Mary because they are friends and she gave a witness statement for her, but she can give a statement about what Mary has told her if that will help. Mary tells Kim there is no way she is going to the police or to the court to get an AVO, she wants to know is there something she can do without going to the police or to the court. The next day Mary went back to the unit she shared with Dave and collected her things when Dave was not home. On 15 October Mary received an email from Immigration telling her that they had information her relationship had ceased and she has 28 days to reply or her visa would be refused.

Mary needs advice. Write an advice to Mary which sets out the issues for Mary and discuss all relevant matters including the following:

a) Is there a way Mary can still be granted a partner visa even though her relationship has ceased?

b) What steps can Mary take in response to the notice from Immigration?

c) What criteria is required for a claim of family violence? Advise Mary about what she should provide to Immigration in response to their request for further information about the partner visa applications, subclass 820 / subclass 801. 

Jack Chan

Jack Chan is from Hong Kong. He attended one protest in Hong Kong against the Chinese Government in November 2019. Jack was not strongly involved in the protests in Hong Kong, but he joined one protest because his friends encouraged him.

Jack applied for visas for Australia and the USA in December 2019. He was granted a student visa for Australia valid to 15 March 2021. He is studying a Graduate Diploma in Marketing. Jack was also granted a visitor visa for the USA valid to 10 December 2020. His visa has the following conditions: 8105, 8202, 8501, 8516, 8533 and 8534 On 25 January 2020 Jack arrived in Australia to commence his studies. Jack has continued his involvement in the protests by supporting the Hong Kong protestors online and especially on Twitter.

He became more and more involved with the protest groups, much more than he was when in Hong Kong. He said he felt freer in Australia to express his views, and in Hong Kong he had been careful out of respect for his family. In September 2020, Jack attended protests supporting the Hong Kong protests at his university in Sydney, and a speech he gave to other students at his university was broadcast SBS TV news. The speech was in English and Chinese. The speech was then uploaded onto Twitter and YouTube and an English translation was provided on the YouTube version when Jack spoke in Chinese. Jack attended a meeting of the Chinese minority community of Uighur people (the Uighur community) in Sydney and he was invited to speak to the community about human rights breaches in China. He gave the speech and this was reported on Twitter by the Uighur Community. Over the last month Jack was trolled on Twitter and then on Facebook by people attacking his opposition to the Chinese government, calling him a traitor to China and saying that he should be killed. He became afraid and reported the threats to the NSW police but they said they could not trace the trolls, even though some were coming from inside Australia.

His parents contacted him last week to advise him to stop posting on Twitter and said they had been contacted by someone in Chinese State Security about their son in Australia. Jack is seeking your advice about applying for a visa for protection. He needs to know whether the visa will be a permanent or temporary visa, and what are all the requirements for this visa. Also evaluate his protection claims and advise him about these.