Australian Immigration Daily News

We have been doing our research into the Professional Indemnity Insurance options offered by the MIA and Migration Alliance (MA), given that they are the two peak membership associations in the migration advice profession.

Let's start with the basics.  MIA charge members (joint members of MA) an annual membership fee.  Migration Alliance does not charge an annual membership fee.

Reason would have it that MIA members would then be given access to great savings and well-negotiated deals on essentials such as Professional Indemnity Insurance through their membership association.  Nope.

Shock. Dismay. Disbelief. Anger!

I experienced all of these emotions, and more, in relation to events in one of my cases that unfolded over the last week.

I had been assisting a client with submissions to the "Visa Applicant Character Consideration Unit" (who refer to themselves by the acronym of "VACCU") concerning a notice of intention to consider refusal of a partner visa on character grounds (My client served 6 months in prison for offences relating to the use of false identities, and he did "fail the character test" because he had been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for these offences.

Here’s another interesting question that was recently decided by the Federal Circuit Court on Schedule 3 waivers:

Is a future desire on the part of the applicant and sponsor to have a child together a “relevant consideration” that must be taken into account by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal when it determines whether or not to grant a Schedule 3 waiver?

The case in which this question was presented was Lan v Minister for Immigration & Anor 2018) FCCA 1170 (2 May 2018). 

Suppose the sponsor for a partner visa is suffering from a litany of health issues.

Does that necessarily mean that the applicant will be able to get a waiver of Schedule 3 criteria to enable her/him to remain in Australia while a partner visa application is being processed?

A recent decision by Judge Baird of the Federal Circuit Court in the case of Mensah v Minister for Home Affairs & Anor (2018) FCCA 1204 (10 May 2018) indicated that “it ain’t necessarily so”!

Do you remember the curious and unusual case of Guder v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2017) FCCA 626?

That was a case that highlighted an unusual aspect of the regulations relating to the now-repealed 457 visa program: namely, that the legislative instrument relevant to the English language proficiency requirement for the grant of 457 visas, IMMI 15/028, was written in terms that provided that an applicant had 3 years from the date of the lodgment of the application to satisfy the requirement.

The legislative instrument struck me as being somewhat “counter-intuitive”, in that one would have thought that having a satisfactory level of proficiency in English would be a “time of application” requirement.