Australian Immigration Daily News

Labor senator Kim Carr told The Australian yesterday that he intends to proceed today with a disallowance motion of the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Regulation of 2015 which, if successful, could prevent the employment of highly skilled 457 or 400 visa workers on offshore oil and gas rigs.

The Labor plan if approved, could shut down critical parts of the sector, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and inflict substantial “reputational damage” on the country, notes the report.

Hundreds of foreign workers employed in Australia’s $200 billion offshore oil and gas sector would lose their work rights under Senator Carr’s plan which so far has provided no alternative to as to how these specialised skills will be replaced.

Suppose it takes the Tribunal what seems like forever and a day to hand down a decision after a hearing has been held? 

Is justice delayed justice denied? 

Or to put it another way, can the passage of a long period of time without a decision amount to jurisdictional error, so that an adverse decision by the Tribunal will be quashed and the case sent back to the Tribunal for re-determination “in accordance with law”? 

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.