I had quite forgotten the joys of completing visa application forms on behalf of others for the Australian Government until I opened up Ann's ImmiAccount again today. My mind flew back half a dozen years to a period where collecting seemingly endless amounts of data - documentation - to support the already enormous process of completing an application, was my bread and butter for what seemed like months. For all I know, it might have been years.

At that time I had been applying for permanent residency for Ann and JJ, one after the other, followed by citizenship a little later. This time Ann's son Aran wants to come for a holiday, which is great, but it falls to me, as it must, to go into the breach once again. 'Surely a mere tourist visa will be a knock over?', I thought, as I nervously tapped at the keys to open the account on my computer.

How wrong can a man be? I had forgotten about the needless information gathering, the lack of auto-fill, the one-size-fits-all questions and much else besides. And I haven't even got to the section where data must be collected, translated, certified and uploaded.

I remember saying to an immigration officer once that the amount of effort expended completing the residency applications was deserving of a PhD, if only for the quantity of time spent on the project and the arcane nature of much of it. He thought I was joking.

But no, I was not.