Last night was a huge success with over 400 people turning up to the Australia-Korea Political and Business Forum at Le Montage, Lilyfield.  Migration Alliance hosted a table at the event and our member agents were able to meet Scott Morrison MP in a relaxed setting.   Above are some RMAs with Scott Morrison out on the deck before dinner.  Migration Alliance supports a multicultural Australia.

Tony Min RMA and Scott Morrison MP (Immigration Minister) outside on the deck having pre-dinner drinks before the Korea-Aiustralia political and business forum Gala dinner.

Will minimum required test scores for TOEFL iBT and PTE Academic tests be benchmarked against IELTS equivalencies?

Winners of the photo competition for the RMA calendar

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING RMAs
                                    
                                    
Winners - ranked    
1 Linh Sy    Ho         $1000
2 Sirous    Ahmadi   $500
3 Gofran    Chebib    $250
4 Ranbir    Singh
4 Rohit    Mohan
4 Manjinder Pal Singh    Sekhon
5 Yashpal    Erda
6 Yoland    Murphy
7 Richard    Yuan
8 Tatiana    Stack
9 Prabhjot    Sandhu
10 Liana    Allan
11 Jerry    Hooper
12 Christopher    Levingston

Highly commended - unranked
Greg    Gordon-Lane
Tonnou    Gothane
Hector    Gutierrez-Bocaz
Diresh    Kohli
Friederike    Kuehn
Harry    Nakazawa
Ushass    Panicker (with Jamil Shah)
Jamil    Shah
Bina    Shah
Seema    Shah (with Bina Shah)
Harjeet    Singh
Amarjit    Singh
Danijela    Stojanovic
Ngoc (Crystal)    Tran

Booby prize    
Chris    McGrath        $250

The calendar will now be put together and printed.  The Migration Agent Calendar will be available shortly thereafter.  No photographs will be displayed at this stage as this will spoil the surprise of the 2015 RMA calendar.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL RMAS - IT WAS TOUGH DECIDING THE WINNERS
    

We really look forward to publishing the 2015 migration agent calendar.

What is 'complete' and what is an 'incomplete' application for the 457 in the eyes of the case officer?

Even though RMAs can think that they are submitting a 'complete' application, any DIBP case officer can ask questions about the 'genuineness' of any part (nomination, 457 visa) of an application. This is despite the application/s being lodged in complete form, online. 

Migration Agents (registered ones) report repeatedly receiving requests for further information, which  have already been attached to the online application.  Case officers often don't look at or read the information which has been submitted by an agent.  If a case officer neglects or forgets to look at what has been lodged, and then requests further information that is already available to them, does this trigger a 'incomplete application' in the DIBP system and go towards the 60% of 'incomplete' applications?

Has the DIBP considered auditing the accuracy and performance levels of its own staff first, by creating statistics on the rate at which DIBP officers make 'requests for information already on file'?

The checklists for 457 visa applications on the DIBP website are incomplete if one considers what a complete application 'might be' in practical reality.

Message in from the DIBP today:

Dear Registered Migration Agent

I am writing to you in my capacity of Director Program Delivery, Temporary Business Entry. In this role I have responsibility for the subclass 457 processing network.