@Stuart ********

okay I’m going to appreciate your attentiveness and ask you this question too.

@Geoff *******

My situation is similar. Been in Phuket 3 months now and loving it. I’ve been receiving my Oz public service defined benefit pension for 18 months now since reaching preservation age of 58 and can’t wait to turn 60 in November when it becomes tax exempt. Still have 2 units in Melbourne negatively geared, and still working p-t as a lawyer so I expect taxes to remain a “taxing” issue!

@Brandon ***********

and yet, it seems that you can apply!

@Shaun ******

that’s a very intuitive comment! The question is phrased in a way that hope triumphs over fear. All you have with someone you haven’t met is HOPE of a relationship, not an actual one. Let’s be real here and say some of us clung expensively after decades of hope that our marriages would work out. And they still didn’t, so the internet smiling back at you for a second is pure fantasy.

So just be realistic. Feel free to buy her a gift or two once you’ve filtered out the obvious “money crowd” but this is no different to paying for dinner on a blind date in the HOPE of a relationship developing. Just don’t mislead yourself with false hope! That’s more soul destroying than buying a pointless gift.

@Bobby *******

okay thanks. The reference in paragraph 2 to “foreign retirees” threw me!

@Bobby *******

I’ll be back in Sydney around November after a 5 month extended stay starting with a 60 day tourist visa. I will look at the OX at that time.

If this announcement ever becomes law, would it be the in-country equivalent of the OX I can get from Sydney?

/posts//?d=n

@Bobby *******

this has made me think about getting the OA again! I didn’t know I could use my Oz insurance (overseas ops) but regarding no need to transfer money, do they just accept evidence of my Government pension as a former public servant?

@Darren ********

okay. I didn’t pick that up in your narrative

@Darren ********

my government pension in Australia wrote me a letter like this (hopefully it is enough)!

@Stephanie *****

in Sydney 2 months ago, my online visa application was similarly stuck. They said don’t come to the embassy but I went anyway. They were operating normally and a couple of visits later I got the visa in my passport. Hope you’re the same. Good luck!