Christopher Levingston Blog

Attached please find a communication from DIBP concerning their unwillingness to supply speakers for the Migration Alliance national conference.

It is nice to know that DIBP has such a personal perspective on their relationship with MA and the RMA community.

I have sent a reply.

I was thinking about what I actually give a f**k about and in that mild digression I realised that there are many things I don't give a f**k about.

What I don't give a f**k about are the proposed changes to the SOL and the 457 visa. I also don't give a f**k about cases being refused by DIBP, I don't give a f**k about cases being refused by the AAT. I also don't give a f**k about the whole Migration Act and regulations being fundamentally unfair.

I think deciding not to give a f**k about these things and a billion other things I have no control over is liberating and when I really think about if the SOL and the 457 visa is changed, DIBP refuses cases and the AAT affirms decisions and that the Migration Act and the Regs are unfair then that means more work for me. Now that is something I do give a f**k about!

I can’t remember how long it has been since I had heard from DIBP or when the last “consultation” was but out of the blue, the Convenor, Liana Allan, received a stern letter from The NSW State Director, directing that MA cease and desist offering membership cards and practising certificates.

Unfortunately she (Liana Allan) only became aware of the communication after the elections for MA had been called and all positions declared vacant.

Accordingly, in my capacity as the Public Officer of MA, I was obliged to formulate a reply.

My colleague Adrian Joel has informed me that because of a failure of DIBP to register a legislative instrument in more or less the same manner as they failed to do in the case of Singh v. Minister for immigration & Anor [2012] FMCA 145 and subsequently followed in Sharma v. Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs & Citizenship [2014] FCCA 2821; that all applications lodged between 10/1999 and 16 March 2016 are INVALID.

The relevant legal problems turns on the failure of DIBP to in effect record all of its Forms as "Approved Forms" via the mechanism of a legislative instrument in the period from 10/1999 to 16 March 2016.

That being the case if Schedule 1 requires an applicant to lodge an application on an approved form then absent any approved form during the relevant period, that defect would render the application INVALID.

A hung Parliament means that it is unlikely that Carer visas and the Aged Parent visa will be culled for the time being.

It is also unlikely that the Labor drive to crush the 457 visa will have any momentum.

The downside will be that urgent reform and simplification of the statutory scheme will likely be stalled.