Australian Immigration Daily News

 There are times when you read a migration case and you just shake your head in amazement! 

Because, sometimes, a case is so bad, so hopeless, that you wonder what the case was ever doing in the Tribunal, let alone the Federal courts.  Even worse, when the words that spell doom for the visa holder’s case come straight out of his own mouth.  

A case that had this quality of appearing to be totally “dead on arrival” was just reported on Austlii this month, Singh v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2016) FCCA 1663 (7 July 2016). 

Legal cases can sometimes seem like a tangled mess of yarn!! 

You don’t need to go any farther than the case of Josan v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2016) FCCA 493 (11 March 2016) to understand how true this can be! 

The puzzle in this case involved this (complicated!) question: Suppose the AAT incorrectly finds that an applicant has failed to satisfy PIC 4020, but for other reasons, the applicant is still not entitled to the grant of the visa in question.  

How can you tell whether the Tribunal’s decision-making process has “gone off the rails” and that your client may have strong prospects for success with a judicial review application? 

And under what circumstances can it be said that the Tribunal has a responsibility to make an inquiry and to consider information held in the Department’s files, so that when it fails to make such an inquiry, it can be said that the Tribunal has failed to meet its statutory obligation to conduct a review? 

These very important questions were explored in a decision that was handed down on 15 July 2016 by Justice Neville of the Federal Circuit Court, and which appeared this morning on Austlii: Al Mamun v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2016) FCCA 1777. 

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) now accepts TOEFL iBT® scores to fulfill their English language proficiency requirement for skilled migration.

This is welcome news for nurses and midwives seeking to fill the more than 17,000 places available to skilled migrants in those fields, based on the 2016-17 occupation ceilings released by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

ANMAC introduced the changes, including the TOEFL iBT score requirements, following the Council’s review of the English language proficiency standard. The changes became effective 1 July 2016.

Business and Skilled Migration Queensland (BSMQ) is pleased to announce that new Queensland Business Criteria for the Business, Innovation and Investment Program (BIIP) and a new Queensland Skilled Occupation List (QSOL) has been approved by the Queensland Government. These changes will come into effect from Monday 25 July 2016.

The headline changes include:

SUBCLASS 132 BUSINESS TALENT (SIGNIFICANT BUSINESS HISTORY STREAM)

Net Business and Personal Assets of AUD$1.5 million to be transferred to Queensland within 2 years after visa is granted including: