Help Support Gerard Wheeler to Renew his residence and be with his family in Australia

I am a former resident of Australia all my family moved here in 1973, my father four brothers and sister are here in Australia and I lived here from 1973 to 1979 when my mum decided to take me to the UK without my fathers permission and told my father didn’t care and was brainwashed into believing these things, well it took me till I was 21 to track my father down and all my family here in Australia I came back to see them and to see my gran and pops who live here along with my aunties and cousins and other family members in 1989.

I returned to the UK and kept in touch with my family, during the following years I married in the uk and had a very troubled marriage being subjected to violence whilst having to bring up two children of my ex wife’s and stayed to look after my mum who is disabled and required lifts to and from the hospital and shops for her daily needs, she was in and out of hospital on a regular basis having strokes and having a leg she could not walk very far on, she is now in sheltered accommodation which is warden controlled, Who at the time was withholding information from me relating to my former residents visa, it was not until November 2006 that I came across my former residents visa which my mother had been hiding, whilst I was looking for some stuff for her while she was in hospital again, I was devastated to know she had hidden it from me as it was my way of returning to my family in Australia. I confronted her about this as it was important for me to have the chance to return home to Australia and be with my family and she knew this was what I had wanted to do for years, she new I had been on to immigration over the years and looked at returning to be with my family but she also new they were not helpful and would not tell me any information on my former visa status. this is where my troubles started, I contacted immigration in the uk and lodged my application for a return residents visa, meeting all the requirements on the website, close family ties and a genuine reason why I had not applied to return within the last 10 years as I did not know the visa existed and with my disabled mother to look after at that time.

I sent in all the required paper work only to be told I would be refused as they did not think I was going to live in Australia and I did not have a genuine commitment to stay. well I arrived in Sydney in January 2010 after tying up all my affairs in the Uk to lodge my application here which I did in person, in the interview with immigration my dad and step mum came and we explained everything to them, I was told I had a good case and it was favourable, I thought fantastic I can stay at last, well two weeks later I get a call saying we will not grant your residents return visa so advise you to withdraw your application as immigration do not believe I did not know my residents return visa existed, when I asked them how I was supposed to prove I did not know it existed they said sorry you cant prove it. I have now been and looked on the migration review tribunals website and see cases very similar to mine with less evidence and less family being approved and am now about to lodge my next application with all my evidence of family ties and reasons why I should stay. I cant believe that as all my family are here in Australia the fact I was raised here until I was 11, I have a job waiting for me and my family who are Australians born and raised here who want me here to be with my family, and I have to face immigration and be treated so badly, to the point of my case worker calling me in the uk when I lodged my application and shouting at me. I have considered my self Australian all my life all I want is the right to my family life and my residence that I had taken from me against my wishes.

I contacted The Priminister of Australia through his website back in 2007 explaining my case who then forwarded my letter to the head of immigration, the response I got was sorry immigration have strict guide lines to follow and that is the law, if this was the case then when I lodged my second application in Australia showing I am here with a genuine commitment to stay they then come up with a different excuse stating that they did not believe I did not know the visa existed. Seems they come up with anything they feel like to reject genuine people from being with their family. I have grown very close to my family here in Australia I love my family and want to stay to enjoy life with them my father is a quite man who says little but is upset at the fact of me having to return to the uk it would break his heart along with the rest of my family members, especially Jason, and his wife Jodie and my nieces Elizabeth and tiffany my brother martin and his wife Joanne and their little ones Clare and Liam and my brother Tim and my sister Daniel and her husband nick and children Sarah and jack. I love them all as they do me and we want the chance to be back together as a complete family. We have lost many years and now want the chance to spend the rest of our lives as one family not a family torn apart and in two different countries.