Australian Immigration Daily News

Jeff Harvie (MARN 0959797) runs Down Under Visa in Manila, Philippines. They do nothing but partner visas and tourist visas for Australian Filipino couples, and have got very good at it over the years.

Jeff wife Mila is Filipina, and they went through the migration process themselves many years ago. Down Under Visa is run as a family business, with Jeff’s son Jeremy as their office manager too. They have lived and worked full time in Manila for the last 5 years, which means they are always there to tend to the needs of the local applicants in the emotion-charged world of partner visas. This is a vocation for them, and they really care about the well-being and final outcome for their many clients.

Despite having a team of 7, every visa application is personally supervised by Jeff. No fly-in, fly-out RMA service here. No local staff making decisions or giving advice. And support is given online through a personal client portal providing support 24/7, backed up by fast email support, so no one is ever too far from their office. Their website is full of video and written testimonials from happy clients which back all of this up.

The following information has been received from the DIBP:

Dear agent

Further to the email you received on 3 July 2015, the following new instruments: IMMI 15/108, Migration Regulations 1994 - Specification of Occupations, a Person or Body, a Country or Countries 2015, and IMMI 15/109, Migration Regulations 1994 - Specification of Class of Persons 2015 have been issued and are in effect as of 1 July 2015.

The following information has just been received from the DIBP:

Dear Agent

As you have been advised, legislative changes came into effect on 1 July 2015 which will limit nominations for permanent visas for Minister of Religion (ANZSCO 272211) to the Agreement Stream of the Employer Nomination Scheme (Subclass 186 visa). The Department would like to clarify the impact of these legislative changes.

The following email has been received by Migration Alliance:

The online lodgement system of the Migration and Refugee Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is available 24 hours a day from any computer that has an internet connection.

No one likes waiting, least of all to get paid. ASC Migration use Secured Signing to turn around agreements more quickly to get paid sooner. 

Given a choice between one marshmallow now, or 2 marshmallows in 15 minutes, 2 out of 3 kids take the sugar hit straight away. It seems an aversion to waiting is hard wired into most of us. But when it comes to running a small business, getting paid earlier is also good business sense. So it is not surprising that when John Kavanagh of ASC Migration found a business tool that allowed him to get paid 2-3 weeks more quickly, he grabbed it with both hands.

ASC Migration is a registered migration agent under the Federal Government’s Migration Agents Registration Authority. Part of the Code of Conduct for registered agents is to establish a written acceptance from their client before starting work and charging for that work. It typically took 2-3 weeks to turnaround a written agreement sent by post and usually required a lot of follow up to ensure the paperwork didn't get lost in the top drawer.