Australian Immigration Daily News

What is the proper interpretation of the Australian Citizenship Act? 

More specifically, how is section 12(1)(b) of the Act, which enables a person to acquire “citizenship by birth” if they are “ordinarily resident in Australia throughout the period of 10 years beginning on the day” the person is born (even if a parent of the person is not an Australian citizen or permanent resident) to be applied? 

Is it ok for the person seeking citizenship to live in another country for a period of time during the first 10 years after she/he is born? If it is, under what circumstances?  Must the person have a visa allowing her or him to return to Australia during the times that she/he is living outside Australia? 

Whether you agree with it or not, the cancellation of visas on character grounds certainly seems to have become a real “cottage industry” of the Department. 

There certainly does seem to be a significant number of cases coming before the Federal courts involving such cancellations!! 

And a case that was decided last Friday, 12 August 2016, illustrates yet again that once the wheels have been set in motion to cancel a visa on character grounds, good luck trying to stop the process.  That seems to be the case even if the visa holder is a longstanding resident of Australia and even if the criminal convictions prompting the cancellation occurred many years before the cancellation decision was made. 

How strictly will Public Interest Criterion 4020 be applied? 

Will a claim by a visa applicant that there was fraud on the part of a “migration agent”, and that the applicant himself played no part in submitting a “bogus document” to the Department, be effective to get an applicant “out from under” the operation of PIC 4020? 

Or is it the case that PIC 4020 is virtually a brick wall, and that PIC 4020 will result in the refusal of a visa application even if a visa applicant claims that she/he was unaware of the fraudulent conduct perpetrated by a “migration agent”? 

Are Registered Migration Agents in Australia “over-regulated” when it comes to requirements for Continuing Professional Development? 

Is the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority “overly prescriptive” about what is, and what is not, an acceptable continuing professional development activity? 

And are Australia’s requirements for CPD in line with what other Commonwealth countries that have frameworks for the regulation of migration advisers require? 

Do the health criteria of Australia’s Migration Regulations strike the right balance? 

Should Public Interest Criteria 4005 and 4007 really be written in terms that the assessment of whether an applicant “passes” the health criteria really be made on the basis that it would be likely that the provision of health care or community services would be likely to be significant regardless of whether the services would be used or not? 

Does that drafting really make any sense at all? If an applicant’s family has sufficient financial resources that health care for a child with a medical condition would not impose a significant burden on health care or community services, then how could it be “likely” that the provision of health care or community services would result in significant cost to the Australian community?