Professionals Australia has made submissions to the 457 panel to take Engineers off the skills list. Its chief executive Chris Walton has told the ABC that too many locals are without jobs and the flow of migrant workers needs to stop.  Mr Walton did not address the problem employers are having in getting Australian specialists to relocate to regional areas to do the work employers need to get done.

The peak body representing engineers, scientists and managers is urging the Abbott government to tighten controls over skilled migration visas.

“In the last year there's about 7,000 job losses of engineers alone due to the hiatus in the resources sector and now we face hundreds more engineers being on the unemployment list as a result of the collapse of the vehicle industry. And there are many other professionals who are also facing a struggle to get a job,” Chris Walton told the ABC.

“During the boom period of the resource we did support the need for some migrant labour but the labour market has changed. Once the big mining companies put a halt to a range of projects and once the end of the stimulus package with the school hall program and that finished and now with the collapse in the manufacturing industry, you've had a perfect storm and the Government needs to adjust.

He says that temporary labour should be that and the labour market should be constantly tested and adjustments made: “The Federal Government needs to take, temporarily take engineers off the skilled occupation list until there is a change in the labour market,” said Mr Walton.

But the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says it doesn't believe there are too many foreign workers. ACC’s CEO, Kate Carnell says that the problem is that employers still cannot get Australians with the right level of skill to relocate to areas where the work needs to be done.

Migration Alliance will have special guest, Mahboba Rawi attend our Sydney Migration 2014 conference on 17th and 18th October.  In celebration of her Australian Aid work in Afghanistan, Migration Alliance and Sydney TAFE will be hosting an Afghani BBQ lunch.

So who is Mahboba?

Mahboba Rawi came to Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan and is now an Australian citizen. After facing many hardships in her own life, she founded Mahboba's Promise in 1998 to raise funds and awareness among the Australian community as a way to create a sustainable, self-sufficient future for Afghani women and children.

It is important for the general public to understand the Australian Immigration System and how the decision making process works.  For those clients who have had their visa applications refused or cancelled at the DIBP level, don't despair.  The DIBP is only the first stage of the process.  The higher in the decision-making tree you go, the higher the skill level of the decision maker and the more likely you are to obtain a proper decision on your application.  Registered Migration Agents are present at all levels to assist visa applicants exercise their rights.  As can be seen, the DIBP are at the bottom of the skill and decision making tree.

Travellers entering Australia will soon be checked to see if they have undeclared criminal convictions against a biometrics database before being allowed into Australia, Federal Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison announced this at the Biometrics Institute Asia Pacific conference in Sydney yesterday. Morrison told delegates that the government is investing $700 million over the next six years to modernise Australia’s border management system with specific vigilance on weeding out ex-convicts and people with links to terrorist groups.

It is expected that most travellers will sail through the immigration gates as the system aims at making processing quicker and easier for legitimate travellers. The aim is to have such travellers move through the automated immigration system in ‘less than a minute”.

The future traveller, Morrison said, would provide "border clearance information" as part of the check in process, before commencing their journey.

"The data will then be passed on to Australian agencies for assessment prior to arrival, and this data will be evaluated against security criteria and existing intelligence holdings, so that any risk to Australia's security is identified before arrival,” he said. This means the data will be evaluated against risk criteria such as criminal convictions and links to terrorist groups. A decision is thus made before the traveller arrives.

"The future traveller will then pass through streamlined, automated passport control systems that examine retained biometric data that is contained in the traveller's passport against the traveller upon physical presentation on the border,” said the Minister.

Exploring the good that Australian Registered Migration Agents do.

The Registered Migration Agent profession is an important profession.

It is often asked "Does Australia really need another Registered Migration Agent?" or "Why do we need so many Registered Migration Agents?" or "And why do we have an increase in the number of Registered Migration Agents Annually?"

The picture of Registered Migration Agents (RMAs) as Tribunal and Ministerial Intervention Unit (MIU) gladiators fails to capture the way most RMAs work.