Join us for

Exclusive SIV cocktail event

Following the successful SIV cocktail events held in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne,  Migration Alliance is delighted to invite migration agents who practice in, or have an interest in Significant Investor 188 and 888 applications to an exclusive event by our sponsors NAB Private Wealth to be now held in Perth.

Interview by: Tanaya Das
Photo inset: Eddy Kang running to avoid ABC cameras after a CTTT hearing.

The Department of Fair Trading is now actively investigating Eddie Kang.

Re: Current issues with health systems

We want you to alert you to the fact that there have been some problems occurring in the electronic immigration health process since our last systems release on 22 August 2014 – these have been preventing some clients/agents being able to access eMedical Client via the ‘Organise your health examinations’ link in ImmiAcccount.

This was impacting clients who had lodged a GVP processed online visa application. However, this has now been resolved. A new issue has, however, been identified which is preventing some clients from accessing eMedical Client after lodging a My Health Declarations form. We will be scheduling a fix for this as soon as possible (hopefully mid next week). However, in the interim, please make sure that if completing an MHD form all address fields are populated when completing the form to avoid your case being impacted by this problem.

What will happen to sponsors training funds contributed under Training Benchmark A, should the DIBP approved training institutions close down?

Currently, most of the Training Benchmark A funds from employers seeking sponsorship under the sc457 program find their way to various TAFE institutes largely due DIBPs encouragement.

The legislative instrument however only provides broad directions as follows: “Recent expenditure, by the business, to the equivalent of at least 2% of the payroll of the business, in payments allocated to an industry training fund that operates in the same industry as the business.”

But DIBPS website, PAMs and FAQs generally encourage funds be directed to TAFEs, with PAMs specifically setting as follows:

“To meet the requirements of Training Benchmark A, the applicant can show evidence of having made a contribution to a recognised scholarship fund that is operated by an Australian university or TAFE college that supports education or training for Australian citizens or permanent residents in a course related to the business of the applicant.”

The Australian High Court’s verdict, has dealt “another death blow to the federal government’s plans to give asylum seekers temporary protection visas [and has] set significant new limits on Australia’s policy of mandatory detention,” reports The Guardian.

The decision will throw into doubt the legality of detention of thousands of people in Australia, potentially spelling the end for Australia’s mandatory detention regime as we know it, notes the report.

“In the unanimous decision handed down on Thursday, the court threw out the federal government’s strategy of granting temporary visas to asylum seekers through a legal loophole. Unable to get temporary protection visas through parliament, the federal government had been granting other temporary visas which blocked asylum seekers from applying for permanent visas, but Thursday’s case ruled against that practice.”

More importantly, and for the first time, the court clearly set out the constitutional limits on immigration detention. It was previously unclear for what purposes the government could detain non-citizens. The court has now clearly stated that the government can lawfully detain someone in only three circumstances:

• to consider whether to let someone apply for a visa;
• to consider an application for a visa;
• or to remove someone.

Detention is only lawful if these purposes are being “pursued and carried into effect as soon as reasonably practicable”, the court held. The length of detention must be assessed by what is “necessary and incidental” to execute and fulfil those purposes. These limits on detention are constitutional. In other words, parliament cannot override them by introducing new legislation.