still waiting to hear regarding an Australian VISA

We were advised that the VISA would take a month but would usually be received before this. We are now waiting 10 days longer than a month and still no response. They were aware that we were going on holiday and needed the VISA for my dad by the 18th December 2015. We kept being told that the VISA would arrive. On Friday the 18th we found out that our application had only been submitted to the embassy on the 19th November. We also found out that just a call to the embassy will ensure that the VISA is given to a case worker to attend to. Flight centre make use of an Agent Jan cell phone number *** who did absolutely nothing to ensure our VISA is on time and just kept promising that we would have it by the 18th December. We have now lost R10 000 which is the additional costs that the ticket will costs us due to us only being able to pay for it when the VISA arrives. We have lost at least 4 days of our holiday and depending on when the VISA arrives may not even be able to go considering the distance we need to travel for such a short time, never mind the loss of money due to this. Don't make use of these companies as they don't deliver any kind of service. Disgusted.