The DIBP's Visa and Citizenship Helpdesk will be deploying some changes to the ImmiAccount support pages on their website on Monday. This will also include a new enquiry form for agents/clients experiencing problems with ImmiAccount (with the existing one on the agent gateway to be removed).

DIBP will send Migration Alliance some formal communications on Monday so that we can distribute these to our members.  This will be once the DIBP have confirmed the form is live and working effectively in production.   The DIBP have sent Migration Alliance an email giving us the heads up so we know to expect their email on Monday.

RMAs need to be aware that there is a discrepancy on the DIBP website regarding information DIBP have posted online.  This information has just been provided to us from a member RMA.

Certain occupations are incorrect and could cause confusion for some visa applicants.

For example, if you search for FITNESS CENTRE MANAGER on the DIBP website, it will take you to the following link:

Hundreds of foreign workers employed in Australia’s $200 billion offshore oil and gas sector have had their work arrangements deemed invalid by the Federal Court in a ruling delivered yesterday.

In 2014, the Assistant Minister for Immigration, Senator Michaelia Cash changed visa regulations to override the Senate and to make it easier to employ overseas workers on offshore oil and gas projects. Her ministerial directions were quickly challenged by the Maritime Union who having lost in their first court action, appealed to the Federal Court which, yesterday, overturned the initial ruling.

A three-judge panel has allowed the appeal and agreed that the legislation could not be used in the way that it had been.

It said the determination by Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash "is not authorised ... and is invalid."

The judgment read:

After receiving multitudes of complaints from MA members and RMAs about ME Alliance being too similar to, and/or passing off as Migration Alliance, we have been in contact with the Office of the MARA.  Their advice is as follows:

"....should a person, including a registered migration agent, have a concern about the actions or behaviour of an agent, the most appropriate course of action would be for each of these agents to lodge a complaint through the OMARA websiteor speak directly to one of our staff.  The complaints process enables the OMARA to appropriately consider complaints lodged in a transparent manner."  

Please assist Migration Alliance to stop ME Alliance (Migration and Education Alliance) from passing off as Migration Alliance.    Please lodge a complaint to the Office of the MARA citing parts 1.10(ia) of the Code of Conduct, 1.11 of the Code of Conduct, and 4.5 of the Code of Conduct if you are:

If policy tweaks don’t get in the way, foreign student numbers are expected to continue in an upward spiral given that the Australian dollar is expected to remain low and the Indian government is now aggressively promoting the education of its masses.

Writing in The Australian today, Trade Minister Andrew Robb has stressed that India is set to become the main source of overseas student enrolments for Australia. He says the market potential of India, where the government has committed to train half a billion of its citizens by 2022, is enormous.

“We can expect from India a repeat of what we have seen from China. India is our top vocational education and training market and the demand over the next decade will be phenomenal,” noted Mr Robb.

Overall, Federal government figures show that student enrolments rose 10 per cent last year, reversing a dive that cost universities and colleges more than one-third of their overseas students.

English language colleges had their best year in 2013-14, with numbers swelling 27 per cent. And while the growth has stabilised to a more manageable 9 per cent, many students are proceeding to further study in vocational or higher education — suggesting big surges ahead for these sectors.