Despite DIBPs threatening tweets and press reports claiming DIBP is giving students 14 days to explain a course swap, a DIBP spokesperson maintains its letters to students are ‘advice letters’ which are part of an ‘education campaign’ and not formal notice that the department intends to cancel visas of course swappers.

DIBP has recently flagged concerns about students who enter Australia with streamlined visas for university study but switch after arrival to cheaper private colleges. The streamlined visa system with its lower standard of proof is generally restricted to universities and regarded as easier to obtain.

The department is now issuing veiled threats to cancel such visas where courses are swapped.

At the social medial level, DIBP is not mincing its words. The latest DIBP tweet has the wording: “A course swap could mean your student visa is cancelled”. But when queried by the media, a DIBP spokesperson, apparently explained that the letters now being sent out to students are part of an 'education campaign'.

The Australian’s Higher Education Section reports that DIBP has issued letters requiring students to provide an explanation in 14 days for the course swap. The letters assert that the students are in breach of a visa condition, but do not warn that a breach may be a basis for cancellation.

Nobody ever tells you how hard it is going to be when you first sign up to do the RMA course.  At first it seems like a very cool and perhaps prestigious way of earning a living.  Not only that but it seems like a living where helping others to achieve their dreams of a new life in a new country will also have an altruistic aspect to it.

Little does anyone know how hard it really is to be a registered migration agent.

Let me tell you a little bit about my suffering as an agent since 2001 so that somehow I might be able to comfort you in your time of grief.   I am not sure how to write this other than to list the various client issues, OMARA complaints and other such things I have been through.

DIBP is acting quickly to cancel dubious partner visas with already over 1000 partner visas cancelled, including permanent visas, over the last 3 years.

It has been estimated that over 30 per cent of marriages in Australia involve migrant spouses. And the numbers are increasing as visa regulations in other classes get stricter. This has led to greater scrutiny of both applicants and visa holders by DIBP.

Monash University migration lecturer, Dr Bob Birrell has reportedly said that the huge backlog of cases was putting enormous pressure on migration officials.

"They are literally swamped with the client load, it's very difficult to seriously evaluate whether the relationship is genuine and continuing," he said in an interview with the Herald Sun.

I received this message today in my email inbox:

Today, at community breakfasts and BBQs, flag raisings and citizenship ceremonies, in backyards and on beaches, millions of our citizens will celebrate one of the greatest gifts imaginable – to be an Australian.

While Australia Day formally marks the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, today we celebrate something richer and deeper. We celebrate the nation and people we have become.

We are the grateful inheritors of two strands of history: a British heritage and an Aboriginal one. We honour both today.

Along with the millions of settlers from around the world who have made their home in Australia since 1788, we have become one people sharing the one land. We are fulfilling the aspiration put forward in the opening of the Australian Constitution: ‘that the people….have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth’.

Twenty three million of us have found unity in our diversity, respect in our differences and have built a modern nation on the idea that anyone can get ahead provided they are prepared to “have a go”.

Today, almost 18,000 men and women will take the Citizenship Pledge and “join our team”. It is a fitting day to celebrate our new citizens as it was on 26 January 1788 when Australia’s first modern migrants arrived.

We have always been an immigrant country. Since 1949, more than 4.5 million people from across the globe have chosen to make Australia their home.

I am proud to say that one of those families was my own.

On 7 September 1960, my father, mother, oldest sister and I left Tilbury for Australia.

My parents had a deep sense that there was no better place to raise a family.

In a co-incidence that reminds me how much I will always owe our country, fifty three years to the day after embarking on that journey with my parents, I was elected Prime Minister of Australia.

Australia has been a place for people to realise their dreams - if not all of them, at least many of them. Australia didn't disappoint my parents when they left Britain and it hasn't disappointed my wife Margie since she travelled ‘across the ditch’ from New Zealand. My hope is that our country will always live up to the faith that its people place in it.

Today we celebrate the history that has made us who we are; the country that we love and the values and institutions that underpin it.

It is a great day to be Australian - Happy Australia Day!

Regards,

Migration Alliance is pleased to have partnered with Australian Construction Training Services.

Australian Construction Training Services (ACTS) is endorsed by Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) as a TRA Approved Registered Training Organisation (RTO), for both the Offshore Skills Assessment Program (OSAP) and the 457 Skills Assessment Program.

Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) is the Australian Goverment Organisation that is responsible for the Skills Assessment of offshore applicants, for the purposes of Migration. TRA are part of the Department of Industry. 

ACTS provides authorised assessment services for Migration in the following areas:

•     Offshore Skills Assessment Programme
•     457 Skills Assessment Programme

As a Registered Training Organsiation, ACTS and its consortia member Engineering Training Australia (ETA) conduct assessments in accordance with the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) for applicants seeking to have their skills and knowledge assessed towards an Australian trade qualification.

ACTS services are customer focused and are designed to bring out the best in their clients.   Migration Alliance recommends that Registered Migration Agents seek to assist suitable clients with their migration to Australia by referring them to ACTS who can guide the visa applicant (client) through the process of the Technical and Practical assessment methods.