Australian Immigration Daily News

After a long period in the dark, light is finally being shone on Australia’s domestic violence endemic. You may have noticed the harrowing adverts on television and accompanying sweep of law reforms. You may also feel like you have no power to help - after all, domestic violence is in the domain of social workers and doctors right? Wrong. While not traditionally thought of as a ‘first port of call’ for domestic violence victims, migration agents may be the only professional that a victim confides in.

It is likely that you deal with more domestic violence victims than you think, with migrants forming an overrepresented constituent of victims. A recent article highlighted that at any particular point in time, up to half of the domestic violence victims staying in emergency accommodation are on a visa.[1]

Migrants are particularly vulnerable to getting stuck in a domestic violence situation for a myriad of reasons:

The Subclass 485 Visa enables overseas graduates to live, work and travel within Australia temporarily after they’ve finished their studies. This visa was designed to help develop the skills graduates gained during their studies within Australia, as well as making them more employable upon their return to their home country. In 2013, this visa was broadened to make studying at an Australian university more appealing in such a competitive global education market.

When applying for this visa, applicants must provide evidence that they have made appropriate arrangements for health insurance in Australia for the duration of the visa processing period, and for the duration of their visa, once it has been granted.

If you have clients who are applying for a Temporary Graduate Visa Bupa’s overseas visitor covers meet Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) health insurance requirements and also include the following benefits:

The announcement on the weekend that the Liberals in WA were going to direct their preferences to One Nation as opposed to their "natural" allies the Nationals, is but one hick up ( pardon the pun) on the road to oblivion apparently being raced down by the Federal Liberal Party. It reminds me of the Talking Heads song "Road to NoWhere".

This is hot on the heels of the defection of Corey Bernardi and his foreshadowed new "Conservative Party"

Reading the Sydney Morning Herald this morning at page 4 , Senator Bernardi distanced himself from the comments of Ross Cameron and Larry Pickering at a "Q Society" fund raiser.

The Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC) now accepts TOEFL iBT® scores to meet the English language requirements for skills assessment and National Veterinary Examination application purposes. 

To meet the requirement, applicants must achieve the following minimum scores in each section:

• Listening - 24
• Reading - 24
• Speaking - 23
• Writing - 27

This standard must be achieved in the one sitting and its currency is two years.

Sometimes, you can learn a lot more from studying a case that was ultimately unsuccessful than you can from a case where everything went perfectly from the start, it all went swimmingly, and the applicant was granted the visa that she or he applied for. 

The cases where things have gone “pear-shaped”, or run off the rails, show us where the pitfalls and potholes are, alert us to issues that we need to be aware of, and show us how to avoid running into similar problems in the future. 

A case that was decided last week, Singh & Anor v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2017) FCCA 192 (7 February 2017) provides a perfect example.