The ABC reports that in the face of a chronic skill shortages in the dairy industry, Dairy Australia is pushing for widened access to the temporary 457 foreign working visa.

Dairy Australia is preparing to make a submission to the Federal Government on including skilled dairy workers under the 457 visa concessions by mid-year, according to a report by the ABC.

Employing foreign labour is pipped as the most likely short term solution for the labour shortage, while training and educating local dairy farmers and Australian-based workers is part of the long-term picture.

A survey of dairy farmers by Dairy Australia found that of 59 per cent of dairy farms had tried to hire people to work between 2003 and 2008. Almost two-thirds of those say they often or always had difficulty finding the right people.

Speaking to the ABC, Dairy Australia manager of policy strategy Claire Miller said dairy has the capacity to grow, but the industry needs workers. She says state and national policies are encouraging agricultural expansion to take advantage of the Asian dining room, but the workforce is not large enough for the industry to grow. "The skill shortage we're experiencing is actually among the barriers for dairy farmers to expand," she said.

Chinese and Australian tourism industry leaders are complaining that DIBPs got it so wrong with its antiquated tourist visa system that it is threatening to damage Australia’s tourism industry which is valued at some $4 billion.

Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) is set to do battle with DIBP to get it to allow for a more streamlined visa processing system for tourists, according to a report from the Travel Weekly.

Returning from Australia Week in China, ATEC Chairman, John King OAM, told the Travel Weekly that Chinese representatives have expressed concerns about the efficacy of Australia’s visa system for visitors coming from China and that leading figures in China's travel industry have lodged complaints over the "demeaning" nature of Australia's visa application process.

Tourism Australia is reportedly investing heavily in advertising and promotions in order to draw more tourists from China to Australia. But King says that DIBPs approach is turning potential tourists away from the country and thus urgent change is needed. 

"In order to achieve the full potential the Chinese visitor market offers, we need to ensure access for Free Independent Travellers is maximised and this requires an easily accessed and quickly processed visa system," King told the Travel Weekly.

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A Sydney-based migration agent has failed in her bid to have a decision to cancel her registration overturned, with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) confirming the decision by the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA). 

A spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said the cancellation of registration of Ms Weiming Qian followed a number of complaints about applications for protection visas.

The Authority found that Ms Qian had failed to competently and diligently assist her clients and act on their instructions, manufactured or encouraged the manufacture of claims for protection visas, failed to attend with her clients at the Refugee Review Tribunal and the former Federal Magistrates Court for appointed hearings and prepared applications for judicial review when not qualified.

“A migration agent has a duty to act in the lawful interests of a client and this agent’s conduct was clearly not in her clients’ interests,” the spokesman said.

Migration Alliance’s Liana Allan recently had a ‘Thank you’ card returned with a letter from the APS officer suggesting that the card is somehow a breach of the APS Code of Conduct and as such the card had to be returned as the officer needed ‘not to be seen to be biased or impartial’.

Click here for a copy of the returned thank you card plus the letter from DIBP

The officer from the FOI and Privacy Section stated in the letter enclosing Liana Allan's 'Thank you" card that, “I am bound by the APS Code of Conduct which requires that as an APS employee I must at all times behave in a way that upholds the APS Values and APS Employment Principles.”

The APS Code of Conduct, The Public Service Regulations (1999) and the APS Employment Policy and Advice Guide do deal with the issue of gifts and benefits (There is no mention of cards). However, the APS guidelines recognise that issues in these areas are “not always straightforward” and in effect allows some discretion.

Such discretion fortunately has been exercised with some common sense business etiquette in mind in several other instances. Liana Allan points out, “Over the past 12 months I have sent around 10 of these thank you cards to various sections of the DIBP.  The other cards have not been returned in this way. This is absolutely ridiculous.”

And actually quite insulting, let alone the waste of time and cost by the officer involved in drafting that letter and returning the card by registered post with the suggestion that Liana write to the Global Feedback Unit with her compliments, which now of course has to be a complaint.

Let's just get it out there once and for all so that nobody can pretend it isn't happening.

People are buying their way into Australia and no, I don't mean via the SIV $5 million visa.

I am talking about buying their way in on a 457 and, or more importantly, buying their permanent residency visa via employer sponsored migration.