Australian Immigration Daily News

Last year a record 580 people had their visas cancelled on character grounds, according to figures released by the department of immigration. The number of cancellations have been steadily rising because Immigration Minister Peter Dutton now has greater powers to cancel visas and has been using them to deport more non-citizens.

While there are various elements in the Minister’s section 501 broad cancellation powers, most decisions seem to be based on whether there is a cumulative term of imprisonment of 12 months. Therefore, all previous prison terms for different offenses are added together to determine if the visa should be cancelled.

Various cases have emerged in the media over the last year of non-citizens, who have families here and lived here most of the lives, being deported for a range of offenses including driving without a license and road rage. Under the new laws, the minister no longer looks at family ties or length of residency when making the cancellation decision.

The new Work and Holiday visa (subclass 462) arrangements between Australia and the Slovak Republic and Australia and Slovenia commenced on 1 January 2016. 

These arrangements allow up to 200 young adults from the Slovak Republic and up to 200 young adults from Slovenia each year to enjoy an extended holiday of up to 12 months in Australia, during which time they can undertake short term work and study.  The arrangements also offer reciprocal opportunities for an equivalent number of young Australians to visit the Slovak Republic or Slovenia each year.

Under the program young people aged between 18-30 years may apply to travel to each other’s countries for one year to undertake short-term work and study.

Currently, there is no tax payable on the first $18,200 working holiday visa makers earn. But from July 1 2016, such visa holders will have to pay tax on every dollar they earn. Farmers who say up to 50 per cent of their seasonal workforce is made up of such visa holders are planning a major lobby against this planned change.

Queensland's peak horticulture lobby groups. Growcom, the Queensland Farmers Federation and Cotton Australia are planning to launch an ‘intensive lobbying campaign’ to highlight the severe impact of the measures on the agricultural sector, which fears an exodus of seasonal farm labour.

"It's very simple. It will deter backpackers from coming and working on our farms," Growcom chief executive officer Pat Hannan recently told ABC Rural Radio.

The telephone contact was the one opportunity to fix the problem given that all the written communications to the visa-holder were returned unclaimed.

Soon after the call and further failure in written communications, the 22-year old Chinese student had his visa cancelled. He then had to turn to the High Court of Australia to quash the decision of the case-officer.

In 2014, after both DIBPs letters to the Macquarie University’s Foundation Program student, Wei Wei, were returned unclaimed, the case-officer assessing the matter telephoned the student to make enquiries about his current address.

A West Australian Magistrates Court has found that for over 5-years Paul Gregory Harrison engaged in criminal conduct including stealing, fraud, receiving a fee for providing migration agent services when he was unqualified, forging documents and delivering false documents.

The 51-year-old Thornlie man was sentenced to a total of seven years’ jail after being convicted over the string of criminal and migration fraud offences which cost his victims over $730 000.

The charges arose from a joint investigation between DIBP and the WA Police Major Fraud Squad, involving a fictitious cattle deal with overseas buyers.