Australian Immigration Daily News

It has been brought to our attention within a private Facebook group (Capstone Exam Study Group), that decision records from the Office of the MARA are starting to require sanctioned migration agents to pass the Capstone.  The earliest decision record which contained this requirement is reported to be from 2018.  The decision record contains the following sentence:

"Agent has passed the Capstone assessment offered by The College of Law (Limited) to assess the Agent’s ability to meet the Occupational Competency Standards for Registered Migration Agents"

Thank you, Ira Rodriguez for bringing this to the attention of the migration agent profession.

Australian Federal Police Protection (AFP) officers will now be armed with short-barrelled rifles (SBRs) and specialised first-response-capabilities in designated Australian airports from today.

“There is no elevated threat level in airports. The rollout is designed to ensure Australia aligns with world-best-practice for counter terrorism first response activity. It is vital we are equipped to respond immediately with the appropriate resources to any situation in the airport environment,” Commissioner Kershaw said.

“Members of the public should be aware while there will be no changes to the way they move through Australian airports, they will start seeing Protection Operation Response Team (PORT) officers patrolling alongside general duties members, specialised firearm and explosive detection canines and Rapid Appraisal Officers; who are responsible for rapid, targeted assessment of potential explosive threats.”

Migration Newsletter 754 has been released and makes excellent reading:

Migration_Newsletter_754.05.pdf

Source:  Benchmark https://benchmarkinc.com.au/web/

The TOEFL iBT® test has launched a new score concept, MyBest™ Scores, to give institutions and agencies a more complete view of an applicant’s English language skills. MyBest Scores are the combination of the highest scores achieved on each section (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) and a total score that is the sum of the MyBest section scores. MyBest scores are drawn from all valid TOEFL iBT scores in the last two years.

From August 1, 2019, all TOEFL iBT ® score reports automatically include both scores from a single test date and MyBest scores.

TOEFL® test takers have welcomed this initiative, because it shows their best overall test performance across multiple tests.