Originally Posted by richie colton

Hi Dolly, my name is richie i am 28yr old irish guy and i am in the process of getting a visa, a state sponsered visa for victoria, originaly i had skilled migration visa but because of the recession my agent advised me to change it to state sponsered visa, i am getting worried as it is taking very long as i originaly applied last july 16 and was told i would have my skilled visa in febuary . so i moved to south africa to be with my girlfiend in january, she has been accepted in the university in melbourne,on may 5th we married as we wanted to make a commitment to each other that no matter what happens we are still tgether, on april 1st we changed visa to sponsered visa on advise of our agent, it is june now and they are telling me to be patient, is this normal time or are we being taken for a ride, it has been nearly a year now since i first applied, is this taking too long? my wife could bring me as her spouse but her fees are huge, we really want permanent visa as it will ease the fees, we have spwent 4,500 euros on this so far. could you tell what is the work situation in oz is like also.