Australian Immigration Daily News

The Migration Conference 2016 in Sydney is shaping up to be a great day for RMAs who enjoy networking whilst learning and obtaining 10 CPD.  The one day event starts at 9am on the 26th of February at Sydney TAFE, Ultimo.

Today I would like to focus on one of the key-note speakers for the conference, from the Australian Federal Police, Agent Gus McLean (pic inset).

Gus McLean is a Detective/Federal Agent with the Australian Federal Police, with a background in the investigation of serious transnational organized crime.

Australia is home to some of the best universities in the world that attract students from all over the world. It also helps that it is relatively easy for people to come to Australia to study when compared to other countries. The main reason it is so much easier is that Australia’s government is more lax when it comes to students. People who come here to study are a net positive to our country; they are here to get education and do not get involved in illicit activities. They are also not a burden on our country, which is why one doesn’t see opposition to students like we do with other migrants.

Language

The first and most basic thing you will need to do is pass an English test. In order for the migrants to assimilate in our culture and become a positive part of it, it is necessary that they be well versed in the local language. The test you need to pass depends on different factors and will also depend on what university you are applying to. You will probably not need to do this test if you hail from a country that has English as its national language.

Academia

You will also need to have the required academic qualification, as can be expected. Most migrants come here for higher education. If you are doing an undergraduate then you will need the equivalent of Australian Senior Secondary Certificate of Education (Year 12). If you are here for getting a postgraduate then you will need an undergraduate degree. Your grades will affect which university you can get into.

Offshore detention remains one of the most controversial issues in Australia. Although the government won the latest challenge to its regime of detaining asylum seekers offshore while their humanitarian visa claims were being considered, the High Court of Australia recently warned,“The commonwealth is not authorised ... to support an offshore detention regime which is not reasonably necessary to achieve that purpose.”

In its first decision of the year, the High Court of Australia ruled in favour of the government’s offshore detention policy effectively allowing the government to continue maintaining several offshore detention centres. Some 267 people - including 91 children - who were brought to Australia for medical treatment are now likely to be returned to an offshore detention centre. The federal government has spent more than $1 billion this financial year to house about 2200 asylum seekers in offshore detention centres.

However, the High Court has warned that the government cannot create a regime of indefinite detention offshore, that there are limits to its power to hold people and that it cannot allow people to languish in detention while interminable ‘processing’ drags on, according to a report in The Guardian which anticipates that more legal challenges will follow given the decision.

Is there anything you can do to assure that your client gets a “fair hearing” before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal? 

Suppose you accompany your client to the hearing, and it is apparent from the beginning that the “handwriting is already on the wall”?  In other words, is there anything you can do when it appears that the Tribunal Member has already made up her/his mind on the merits, and that no evidence, and no submission, could possibly sway the member to determine the visa application in your client’s favour? 

Or suppose the nature of the questioning conducted by the Member appears “unsympathetic” and “insensitive” to your client’s circumstances, what then? 

The first time Australia introduced detention was in 1991 at Villawood in Sydney and Port Headland in Western Australia. The mandatory detention came in 1992 and the government at the time said it was to prevent the country from too many unauthorized refugee boats from South East Asia that can possibly test their resolve and capacity to ensure that immigration takes place within a planned and controlled framework.

Today, the situation has worsened and the most vulnerable people are arriving from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka, and Australia has been imprisoning refugees on remote Pacific Islands, setting a bad example of lack of human sympathy for the rest of the world to follow. With Europe now struggling to control a huge number of refugees coming from the Middle East and Africa, walls and fences are being built across the continent in an attempt to keep them out.

Australia has previously implemented remote detention camps with high fences for the isolation of the inhabitants.