Visas for Fijian Males to Australia

When I first met Chita, one of his friends worked at the New Zealand High Commission and told me that there was no way they would give him a visitor's visa as he had no income and had not worked in a resort for five years. Instead he had gone bush and was working on the family plantation. It was a tricky time for us - we had just met, we were keen to see each other a lot and in the first year I visited Fiji 7 times and spent every scrap of savings I had. I bought him a mobile phone to maintain contact and he also learnt how to send texts.
We then set up a small business. We followed the six steps of setting up a business in Suva and with all the documentation at our fingertips we applied for a short term business visa with me sponsoring his expenses. It was refused, as he had insufficient income - my status of sponsorship was not even considered. That was in 2005.
Chita had the shop to build so he wasn't too worried. I could still visit Fiji on holiday breaks being a teacher so we decided to put all our energy into setting up a business in Fiji.
At the end of 2006 Chita was playing rugby and was part of a team chosen to represent Fiji at Fiji Day in Sydney. He had lost his phone and I hadn't been back so we had no way of contacting each other on an impromptu basis - we had a committed phone call to someone's phone in the village every Monday night at 7 pm. I paid for his ticket, booked a ticket for myself to Sydney with a girlfriend. We turn up to Fiji day and he is nowhere to be seen. We ask friendly Fijians if the team from Votua had arrived. No, no, they will be here by one o'clock or one-thirty. We eat, we wander, we watch the dancing and singing. The teams arrive. I am directed to the adjacent park and asked the coach where Chita was. He and the boys are coming in a van= they are running late. We went back to get a seat for the game. The game starts - 10 minutes passes - no Chita, 20 minutes passes- no Chita. I walk onto the ground where all the Fijians were sitting watching the game and called out - Does anyone know where Esita Tubuna is? A sea of blank faces presented itself. I ask again a little more loudly. A young Fijian guy puts up his hand and tells me: He is back in Fiji. The visa for the team was refused.
Little did I know that this story hit Votua within 24 hours. A lady walking around the oval YELLING for Esita Tubuna. His mother found it amusing - as Fijian never raise their voice. What kind of outlandish creature was asking for her son, who had told her repeatedly he would never have a girlfriend again and was never going to marry.
I cried buckets. Went out for dinner and wept through my bowl of prawns, drank a lot and suddenly felt marginally better. I spent Sunday on my own travelling around Sydney Harbour on and off ferries still weeping in glorious sunshine - going why can't I ring him? Why can't I talk to him? I wrote a ten page letter and posted it. Then managed to talk to him at our appointed time on a Monday night back in Tassie and he says - don't worry!!!!!
My second attempt at a visa was a visitor's visa last year. We had been together for two years, we have a business in Fiji which is not making much money, I wanted to introduce him to my family and he gets refused again for all the same reasons and my sponsorship was again refused. I was gutted and devastated. I had presumed everything and provided supporting documentation and they ignored it all. I did not want to be around happy family. My mother thought she was being supportive by telling me to get over it. I'm sorry mum but this hurts. My sisters were instantly immigration agents who knew it all, and thought it was their right to tell me- that he had had no chance of getting a visitor's visa as they had contacts, and they knew better. Not what I needed.
My third attempt at a visa has been applying for a prospective spouse visa. Why didn't we get married? Because of the living 12 months continuously clause. I tried to live in Fiji last year and find a job so I could get a work permit but there was nothing available and what was available was slave labour.
Our migration agent suggested there were fewer hurdles for the prospective spouse visa so we went with that.
Its been a gruelling and taxing time for me emotionally, physically and mentally. I am a Type A personality who gets things done and I have been constantly thwarted by Fiji.
Even handing over the business to friends is huge for me, as I would love to be there getting a bakery-cafe set up and meeting heaps of people but instead I have had to relinquish that dream and prioritize. I need Chita in my life. He needs to learn Australian ways or this mixed marriage will go nowhere. We have more opportunities here, and I have to postpone my bakery-cafe for 2-5 years realistically while we get ourselves into a financially stable position. Boring but necessary.
So now you know why Chita has not been to Australia. Fijian males between 20-45 have great difficulty getting a visitor's visa. Fijians are put into a high risk category for overstaying which when you apply for visas you wonder how they could think that, as they can't get in the bloody country. I am with Rupert Murdoch who in his Boyer's lectures has stated that Australia needs to lift its restrictive immigration policies and build a working nation..... I agree wholeheartedly!