Morrison has dangled new concessions in a desperate bid to reintroduce the temporary protection visa and has hooked the votes of 3 senators. But with Labor, the Greens, Jacqui Lambie and John Madigan opposing the bill, the votes of Senator Ricky Muir and 2 Palmer United Party senators are still needed to bring back the TPV.

Late breaking news indicate that that Morrison’s latest attempt to get the TPV legislation through the senate may succeed with indications that PUP senators and their ally Senator Muir will support the bill. The immigration minister wants to reintroduce the TPV which in essence offers limited asylum period to refugees but dissallows permanent residency. The opposition is insisting that the 30,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in Australia receive the possibility of a permanent visa.

Morrison latest concessions include the following:

• increase the annual humanitarian intake of refugees from 13,750 to 18,750 over the next four years if the bill currently before the Senate is passed. But the increase will only happen once the "legacy caseload" of the 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived under Labor has been cleared.
• stop the transfer of about 1500 boat arrivals from late last year, including 460 children, to Nauru. They will be taken into the legacy caseload and have their applications processed.
• asylum seekers would be offered work rights. Currently some 25,000 asylum seekers who are on community bridging visas do not have work rights.
• introduce a five-year Special Humanitarian Enterprise Visas., These visas are designed to encourage refugees to live and work in regional areas of acute labour shortages. If at the end of the visa, the refugee has not drawn on welfare benefits for three and a half years, they can apply for onshore visas.

Labor supports the use of Special Humanitarian Enterprise Visas if they can lead to permanent visas for asylum seekers but continues to have concerns about the legislation, and remains firmly opposed to TPVs and the parts of the bill that entrenches boat turn backs.

Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles said Mr Morrison's bargain plea was "politics at its worse", saying the minister could have taken all children off Christmas Island months ago, rather than hinging his decision on the Senate passing the bill.

Fiji has become the target of scammers including travel and recruitment agents who are taking people’s money with the promise of work visas into Australia. The Australian High Commission has warned that while Australia had invited Fiji to join the Seasonal Worker Program and the Work and Holiday Visa program, neither of those arrangements had been implemented. The Australian government is therefore not accepting any applications.

In a media statement the high commission said it was advised of visa scams relating to fake work visa permits for the Seasonal Worker Program and Work and Holiday Visa Program between Australia and Fiji.

"This means that while both the governments of Fiji and Australia are working on these arrangements, no such visas are yet in place for Fijian citizens for these programs," it stated adding that the high commission will make an announcement once it starts accepting applications.

DIBP is currently in the process of negotiating new and more liberalised Working Holiday Maker visa arrangements with several new partner countries including Mexico, Hungary, Vietnam, San Marino, the Czech Republic, Latvia, the Slovak Republic and Andorra. Earlier this year it signed agreement with Greece, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Israel. However, so far the programs for only Spain and Portugal have started.

China has was recently flagged for 5,000 such visas under the proposed China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and could very well become the next hotbed for scams.

The Federal Court recently held that the Migration Review Tribunal  failed in procedural fairness when it did not follow up at all on its hearing invitation to an applicant when there was no response and no appearance by the appellant. The courts held that it was a failure of the Tribunal to fulfil its obligations under s.360

Kaur v MIBP [2014] FCA 915 was an appeal from a judgment of the Federal Circuit Court dismissing an application for judicial review of a decision of the Migration Review Tribunal (the tribunal). The tribunal had affirmed the delegate’s decision not to grant Kaur’s Student (Temporary) (Class TU) Subclass 572 visas on the basis that there was insufficient evidence of ‘financial capacity’ to undertake studies in Australia.

In this case there were two hearings scheduled. Kaur and the tribunal maintained a significant number of communications over a period of 5 months after the first hearing. The tribunal posted an invitation to Kaur inviting her to attend a further hearing. The hearing invitation was returned to the tribunal marked ‘RTS’. Kaur did not respond to the hearing invitation or attend the further hearing. The tribunal then proceeded to affirm the decision under review.

The Federal Circuit Court, in the initial appeal, concluded there was no jurisdictional error, finding that the tribunal was not obliged to have followed up the non-response to the second hearing invitation and the evidence did not suggest that the tribunal’s exercise of the discretion was ‘capricious’

However, on further appeal to the Federal Court, it was held that the tribunal’s exercise of power under s.362B(1) of the Migration Act (Cth) 1958 was legally unreasonable and therefore exceeded its jurisdiction. Given the history of contact between the tribunal and the appellant, including proactive contact from the tribunal, it was inexplicable why there was no attempt to contact the appellant. The tribunal ought to have realised her non-response to the hearing invitation and failure to attend the hearing was, given her past behaviour, out of character.

In a bid to cool the rapid growth in house prices and deal with the claim that “The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) is hopeless” in dealing with foreign buyers, the federal government is considering a series of measures including visa checks and heavy fines, to deter foreign investment in the housing market, reports The Australian.

A parliamentary committee reviewing foreign investments in the Australian property market is expected to deliver a report that will be highly critical of the performance of the FIRB, the gatekeepers entrusted with the management of the flow of overseas investments into Australia.

Generally, foreigners are barred from buying established homes but are allowed to own them while in Australia, provided they sell them within three months of departure.

The Australian reports that the FIRB has been a sleep at the wheel in its enforcement responsibilities in this respect noting that, “[The FIRB] has not forced a single ­investor to sell an illegally ­acquired home since 2008, during which time foreigners have bought tens of thousands of established homes.”

It is expected that the committee will propose:

• a ban on marketing real estate developments solely to overseas investors;
• a nationwide land-transfer database to track the ­nationalities of offshore buyers;
• data-sharing arrangement that will require DIBP to automatically advise the FIRB whenever a property owner’s visa expires;
• impose fees for foreign investors seeking FIRB approval to purchase property;
• impose fines for a breach of the FIRB rules; and
• tighten regulation of offshore investment in real estate.

Australian house prices have risen dramatically in recent years, with the cities of Sydney and Melbourne leading the gains. Record-low interest rates have fed speculative residential-property buying among Australians themselves, but anecdotal evidence points to the growing participation of foreign buyers—especially from China.

A new bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday has dramatically expanded the powers of immigration Minister Scott Morrison by granting the minister broad new powers to cancel or refuse visas to non-citizens who commit crimes in Australia.

The changes will effectively lower the threshold for the cancellation of temporary visas for non-citizens.A person can now fail the character test if there's a 'reasonable suspicion' - not a conviction - for involvement in crime gangs, people smuggling, genocide, war crimes, torture or slavery.Anyone who has one or multiple jail sentences adding up to 12 months - down from two years - or has an adverse ASIO assessment of child sex charges can also fail automatically.The minister can cancel or refuse a visa to anyone who fails the character test.

Commenting on the new powers, assistant immigration minister Michaelia Cash said the federal government had low tolerance of criminal behaviour by non-citizens.

'Entry and stay in Australia by non-citizens is a privilege, not a right,' she told the chamber on Wednesday, according to a report in The Australian.'The Australian community expects that the Australian government can and should refuse entry to non-citizens or cancel their visas if they do not abide by Australian laws.'

IN SUMMARY, the purpose of the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Bill 2014 (the Bill) is to amend the Migration Act 1958[1] (the Act) in relation to the character test and general visa cancellation provisions to:

Schedule 1—Character test