Peter Dutton who is set to be sworn in today as immigration minister has issued a stern warning to migrants engaged in criminal activities, saying they are now at the top of his hit-list according to a report in The Courier Mail. 

Mr Dutton, who was police officer for 9 years worked in the Sex Offenders Squad, Drug Squad, and the then National Crime Authority told the newspapers that if he can find a way to kick out those involved in serious crimes, he will.

Recently introduced legislation has vastly increased the powers of the minister to cancel visas and will undoubtedly help the new minister hit his targets. The powers effectively lowered the threshold for the cancellation of temporary visas for non-citizens. A person can now fail the character test if there's a 'reasonable suspicion' - not a conviction - for involvement in crime gangs, people smuggling, genocide, war crimes, torture or slavery. Anyone who has one or multiple jail sentences adding up to 12 months - down from two years - or has an adverse ASIO assessment of child sex charges can also fail automatically. The minister can cancel or refuse a visa to anyone who fails the character test.

Peter Dutton who left the health portfolio to replace Scott Morrison as Immigration Minister during this week’s reshuffle, intends to use these powers, which Morrison had most recently used to cancel 27 visas of violent criminals, and says the Government will place greater emphasis on finding criminals to boot out of the country.

“If you’re an illegal bikie, if you’re part of an outlaw motorcycle gang involved in organised criminal activity, you’ve just made it to the top of my list,” Mr Dutton told The Courier Mail.

He said he would draw on any legislation he could to ensure his tough focus was enforced.

Prime Minister Tony Abbot has announced a cabinet reshuffle. The current minister for immigration Scott Morrison will become social services minister and take charge of a “families package” and ongoing welfare crackdown while Peter Dutton – who the prime minister described as a “tough, no nonsense individual” – will take over immigration and border security.

According to a report in The Guardian, Morrison was understood to have been disappointed having sought the defence portfolio in the reshuffle. In his announcement Tony Abbott stressed Morrison’s role in social services would be central to the government’s hopes for a political revival in the new year by putting “jobs and families at the heart of our political agenda”, as well as to its plans for “budget repair”.

 “I can think of no finer advocate than Scott Morrison, he is the master of difficult policy as he has abundantly demonstrated in all but stopping the boats over the last 15 months,” Abbott said. “He is also a very decent human being.”

Dutton will inherit the problem of more than 2,000 asylum seekers still in offshore detention and more than 30,000 asylum seekers in Australia facing the uncertainty of temporary protection visas.

Dutton has not had a great year as the health minister as he struggled to make a case for the GP co-payment. He will continue to oversee Australia's offshore processing of asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island.

_{Dutton’s Background}

Peter Dutton was elected as the Federal Member for Dickson in Queensland in November 2001 when, at the age of 30 he defeated Cheryl Kernot.

For people having issues with ImmiAccount the DIBP has today asked agents to send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a screen shot and explanation of the issue experienced. 

To take a screen shot please press the 'Print Screen' key on your keyboard then paste that onto a word document.  Save the document.  The 'Print Screen' key is usually found in the top row of the keyboard near the F12 key.

Once an email is received, the DIBP will then indetify if the client will become unlawful soon and will prioritise based on the individual case-by-case basis (visa expiry date).

A couple of registered migration agents have reported that ImmiAccount is not working and showing the 'an error has occurred' and 'temporarily unavailable' message on some of the attempted entries. 
Approaching Christmas and the end of the year and ImmiAccount not working.  Makes life pretty hard for RMAs and applicants who need to lodge visa applications before EOY shutdown.

Firefox seems to crash more than Internet Explorer so try using IE to lodge.

Immigration laws look set to get tighter with Prime Minister Tony Abbot announcing an urgent review of how the Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis slipped through the migration checks and subsequent police monitoring.

Media reports claim that the Iranian authorities warned the Australian government that Monis had been charged with multiple counts in 1996, the time he made an application for asylum in Australia.

Prime Minister Tony Abbot has told ABC radio that the Australian authorities “had to do better” and is demanding answers as to why Monis was granted a visa in the first place and how is it that he was not subsequently monitored given his chequered past and criminal conduct in Australia.

When asked whether the system had failed, despite the introduction of a raft of new security laws in Parliament this year, Mr Abbott agreed it “did not adequately deal” with Mr Monis. “There’s no doubt about that. That’s why we have to learn the lessons of everything that happened, we have to be constantly asking ourselves is this the best we can do and frankly we have to always be better than this, because if we aren’t good at this our people suffer” said Mr Abbot.

The Sydney Morning Herald has called for probationary period to be introduced for new migrants. “Monis is a classic case study of why Australia needs to have probationary conditions applied to the residence status and then citizenship granted to immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. To cover for mistakes, this probationary status needs to be rigorous and lengthy.”

Mr Abbott said he wanted to see a report into the events leading up to the Sydney siege, which he intended to release publicly.