Australian Immigration Daily News

The Director of the Office of the MARA has provided the following information to Migration Alliance overnight:

Please see below the new Form 1548 ‘Application for an Australian Legal Practitioner Number’ (LPN).   

Form-1548.pdf

Overview of the Disallowable Legislative Instrument

The purpose of this Disallowable Legislative Instrument is to amend the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Migration Regulations) and the Immigration (Education) Regulations 2018 (the Immigration (Education) Regulations) to update references and provisions consequential to amendments made to the Immigration (Education) Act 1971 (the IE Act) by the Immigration (Education) Amendment (Expanding Access to English Tuition) Act 2020 (the IE Amendment Act).The IE Act relates to the provision of certain courses of instruction for migrants and certain other persons.  This includes the provision of English courses.  The IE Act sets out who is eligible and ineligible for English courses, as well as time limits for registration, commencement and completion.  The IE Act also establishes the Minister’s obligation to provide or arrange the provision of tuition in an approved English course to certain eligible persons. The IE Amendment Act, which received the Royal Assent on 17 December 2020, makes the following amendments to the IE Act: 

• changing the upper limit for eligibility to access English tuition from ‘functional English’ to a new level of ‘vocational English’;

• removing the 510 hour statutory limit on an eligible person’s entitlement to English tuition;

• removing the statutory time limits of up to 12 months for registering for, commencing and completing English tuition for certain people who held a visa and were in Australia on or before 1 October 2020; and

• allowing for the provision of English tuition to certain visa holders or visa applicants outside Australia, to support their English language learning in preparation for their migration to Australia.

Source: Migration-Legislation-Amendment---English.pdf and 

This instrument amends the Migration (IMMI 18/003: Specified courses and exams for registration as a migration agent) Instrument 2018 to set out prescribed courses, examinations, examination scores and periods for completion of scores and exams and also amends IMMI 18/003 to reflect the fact that the Capstone Assessment examination must be passed before 1 January 2021.

The Migration (Specified Courses and Exams for Registration as a Migration Agent) Amendment Instrument (LIN 21/005) 2021 (the Instrument) is made under subregulation 5(4) of the Migration Agents Regulations 1998 (the Regulations) and amends Migration (IMMI 18/003: Specified courses and exams for registration as a migration agent) Instrument 2018 (IMMI 18/003). IMMI 18/003 specifies courses and examinations that a person must have passed to be registered as a migration agent, where the person has not previously been registered or has not been registered in the preceding 3 years. The Instrument amends IMMI 18/003 to:

- update references to the instrument-making power in regulation 5 of the Regulations to reflect amendments made to that regulation and section 289A of the Migration Act 1958. These are consequential amendments that do not change the substance of the requirements already in place under IMMI 18/003;

- reflect that The College of Law Limited ceased to be a provider of the Capstone Assessment

Source: Capstone---WOOD---March-2021---Instrument.pdf

The Director of the Office of the MARA has provided the following information to Migration Alliance: 

From 22 March 2021, amendments to the Migration Act 1958 will commence, allowing an Australian legal practitioner (lawyer) to provide immigration assistance in connection with legal practice. This means that a lawyer may provide immigration assistance without being a registered migration agent (RMA). 

These changes are as a result of the Migration Amendment (Regulation of Migration Agents) Act 2020 which also requires the removal of lawyers from the regulatory scheme administered by the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA). 

The Australian Study Requirement PI was updated on 26 February 2021 to cover new students.

Section 3.13.3 (Online study) now states:

Note: The requirements that overseas students can study up to 25% of their course online and visa applicants must have been physically present in Australia for study to count towards meeting the Australian study requirement will not be applied to COVID-19 impacted Subclass 485 visa applicants.