Australian Immigration Daily News

What is the legal consequence if a migration agent commits a fraud against his/her client? 

If the agent knowingly and intentionally includes information in the application which is false, does that make the application invalid? 

And will the fraudulent actions of the migration agent be attributed to the client? 

Some $100 million dollars has been committed by the Federal Government to tackle domestic violence. Support groups now say some of this money should be paid to migrant women, escaping domestic violence.

Following a report by the the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence that recommended that women escaping violent relationships be entitled to crisis payments regardless of their visa status, a coalition of 135 groups have written an open letter to the Prime Minister urging him to make funds available to migrant women on temporary visas and fleeing domestic violence.

"Safety from domestic violence is a fundamental human right and must not be subject to a person's visa status," Mr Joe Caputo of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia recently told SBS, "So we feel that by these women being left behind, they are often forced to go back to violent domestic relationships or an abusive partner because they haven't got access to services."

Three of Australia’s big four’ banks have tightened their mortgage rules, and have ceased lending money to offshore customers who are not citizens or permanent residents of Australia.

The changes come on the back of rising concerns that fraud and money laundering are increasing among foreign buyers in the Australian property market, according an ABC report.

A raft of new rules were introduced last year, including visa checks, heavy fines, and forced sales to deter illegal foreign investment in the Australian housing market. Xu Jiayin, one of China’s richest men, was ordered to sell his $39 million Point Piper mansion within 90 days because it was purchased without approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board. The Treasury announced that several properties were being investigated for potential non-compliance with FIRB rules.

We have recently become aware of a company (myti.com.au aka MyCom) making cold telephone calls to RMAs in an attempt to sell RMAs printer and toner goods. When calling RMAs, they say that Migration Alliance has provided them with a 'list' of agents and their contact details.  We haven't.

myti.com.au are cold calling.  We have no relationship with them.   

They apparently have a call centre offshore.

A recent report from The Australia Institute showed that two in three new jobs in Queensland would come in the healthcare, professional and technical services, education and training, accommodation and food services and construction areas from now and probably well into the next 2 decades.

This is great news for the second-largest and third-most-populous state in Australia as job growth in these areas are outstripping job losses in the mining industry, notes the report.

In January, the Queensland Resources Council noted that the mining industry had cut over 20,000 jobs over two years. This is more than a quarter of the mining workforce.  Fortunately, over the same period total employment in Queensland increased by 72,000 due to strong employment growth in other industries, particularly services.