Australian Immigration Daily News

This is the annual report from the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs and the Commissioner of the Australian Border Force (ABF) to the Minister for Home Affairs for the financial year ended 30 June 2018.

It is the first annual report published since the Department’s establishment on 20 December 2017.

The report covers the performance of the Department of Home Affairs and the ABF, which is established within the Department of Home Affairs for budgetary, employment and administrative purposes, but is operationally independent.

Migration Agents might want to be aware of this first reading which was put to the Senate yesterday by Senator Anning.  I am not sure if this has hit main stream media yet, but to me this seems nothing short of a xenophobic, racist, bigoted move!  Here it is and below is the extract from Hansard:

BILLS Plebiscite (Restricting Non-European Migration) Bill 2018

First Reading

The TOEFL iBT® test score requirements for those who must provide an approved English-language test result to achieve Migration Agent registration have been revised. 

The revision, which took effect 1 January 2018, brings the TOEFL® test requirements for migration agents into line with score equivalences used across the Department of Home Affairs.

The new TOEFL iBT requirements are an overall score of 94 and minimum section scores of:

1.            Processing Times 

Home Affairs published latest processing times for subclass 482 visas.   Based on the October 2018 processing times frames, 75% of all 482 applications are processed in: 

• 49 days – Short Term Stream
• 38 days – Medium Term Stream
• 22 days – Labour Agreement Stream
• 38 days – Sponsorship
• Nominations – 35 days 

Processing times are updated regularly and are published on Department of Home Affairs website. 

Engineers Australia (EA) is the designated authority for assessing skills and competencies related to engineering occupations in Australia.  Migration Agents are able to lodge Skills Assessments with Engineers Australia on behalf of their clients.  From October 2018, Engineers Australia rolled out a number of new features designed to assist agents with skills assessment process.  The Portal which can be accessed by Migration Agents is now more intuitive to navigate and more user friendly. As registered users, Migration Agents will have access to all previous functions as well as new functions rolled out in October 2018.  

The online portal has another user friendly feature which includes the ability to add a secondary agent to an application.  To add a new agent, you will need to select the Add Agent button from the lead agent tools page. Before an agent can be added they will need to have a valid EA ID number and an account with Engineers Australia (which can be created for free). You will then need to search for the person you wish to add as an agent by their EA ID number and date of birth, and then selecting the Find Person button. 

Lead agents can transfer an application from a registered agent with their agency to another registered agent within their agency using the marked button. During this process you will be asked to provide the Application ID you wish to transfer and the agent you wish to transfer this application to.