Australian Immigration Daily News

Does it matter when “family violence” has occurred? 

Is it open to the Department, or the Tribunal, to consider whether a “genuine” spousal or partner relationship existed at the time that the incident(s) of family violence occurred?  

Is it the case that if a person has been granted a provisional partner visa (Subclass 309 or Subclass 820) that they should be “conclusively presumed” to be in a genuine spousal or partner relationship? 

Recently, two cases were reported to the Migration Alliance where RMAs unexpectedly discovered that the visa status on the record on the department of immigration’s Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) database were later held to be ‘incorrect’ by the case-officer, thus resulting in refusals of their applications.

An RMA in Perth was shocked when the case-officer in a parent visa application produced a different set of VEVO results for an applicant from the one the RMA initially found on the department’s system which claims to provide ‘a fast and convenient way” to check “current visa details and conditions”

“This is intriguing” the RMA wrote to the Migration Alliance recently, “We did a VEVO check before lodging [the] application. It [did] not show condition 8503 on the entitlement…the only condition listed was No work (8101).” The condition 8530 means that the holder will not, after entering Australia, be entitled to be granted a substantive visa, other than a Protection visa.

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Migration Alliance is in receipt of the following information from the AAT:

I write to advise that the Governor-General has appointed Ms Jan Redfern PSM to serve as a full time Deputy President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and as Division Head of the Migration and Refugee Division (MRD) for a period of seven years commencing 21 March 2016. 

Ms Redfern has served most recently as a Principal Member of the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and prior to this as a Deputy President of the Guardianship Tribunal of New South Wales. Ms Redfern was a senior member of the AAT for five years from 2009 to 2014. Ms Redfern also previously held a number of Senior Executive positions in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and in 2007 was awarded a Commonwealth Public Service Medal for outstanding service in the field of corporate and financial services regulation and enforcement. 

Some 85% of those surveyed by the Scanlon Foundation say they believe that multiculturalism has been good for Australia, according to a recent report on the SBS.

Data referred to in the Scanlon Foundation's Multiculturalism Discussion Paper shows Australians are generally very accepting of cultural diversity and immigration, but the level of support varies across generations, geographical locations and demographic groups.

Research Professor at Monash University Andrew Markus says this report looks in detail at research that's been going on over the past 30 years.

From 1 July, 2015 Significant Investor Visa (SIV) applicants are required to invest 40% of their complying investment into Venture Capital (VC) and small public company shares, and the balance of the $5M into Australian managed funds or listed investment companies.  

There has been much media attention, particularly in relation to a slowdown in applications versus the SIV1 investment regime. Whilst there have been 149 expressions of interest to date, only 6 visas have been granted under the new SIV 2 framework.

We are interested in gaining your feedback on how the SIV program is going, particularly in relation to any insights from potential applicants, and any challenges or opportunities you are experiencing.