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‘Cruel and unnecessary’: The decades-long wait for a visa for your mum-by Michael Bachelard Source:SMH When Vicky Heaton is asked how she’ll feel if her mother cannot get a permanent parent visa to join her in Australia, her voice suddenly wavers. Her mother, Jane, is 77, and Vicky knows that, even if she trusts the Home Affairs department’s current estimate of a 12-year wait time for a parent visa, there is slim hope that they’ll ever live in the same country again. Vicky says she and her two children are now counting the number of times they might see her again. Vicky Heaton is one of many thousands of people waiting for their parents receive a parent visa.  ...