If your clients are taking the TOEFL iBT^® test for skilled migration or other visas, they need to know what to expect on the test, especially the Speaking section. 

What is the Speaking section like?

Police have seized $8.5 million worth of assets, including a 2014 Ferrari, a 2015 Range Rover, six properties and $180,000 in cash; and arrested and charged three men with a series of offences relating to an alleged immigration racket involving Australia Post delivery drivers.

The raids across Melbourne yesterday led to the arrest of Baljit 'Bobby' Singh (pictured right), Rakesh Kumar and Mukesh Sharma (pictured left) who now face charges of “defrauding the Commonwealth and falsifying documents including police checks and student records, in relation to two training colleges.”

“The AFP alleges St Stephen Institute of Technology, owned by Singh and Kumar, and Symbiosis Institute of Technical Education, owned by Sharma, are not providing education, but are in fact being used to source student visas for Indian students who then go to work as posties and parcel deliverers for Australia Post through Singh's labour hire companies. The colleges charge international students fees of up to $10,000 despite allegedly not providing any training,” said the ABC report.

The AFP estimates that students were charged over $9 million in fees while the colleges claimed approximately $2 million in government funding because of their Registered Training Organisation status.

Australia Post management has been implicated and under questioning for contracting the company which apparently had ‘at least a hundred workers…about 60 of them being on student visas’ according to  Joan Doyle, Victorian secretary of the posties' union the CEPU. The company had 16 Auspost contracts, four of which the ABC estimates to be worth $60,000 a month.

New permanent migrants are more highly educated and have better incomes than both their predecessors and the average Australian, according to a report by the Migration Council of Australia.

Many Australians have not been keeping up with the shift in Australia’s economy away from manufacturing and resources toward a high skilled service economy that is diversified. Australia’s migration policies over the last 2 decades has helped fill this gap “enabling structural changes to unfold relatively seamlessly and supplying the human capital needed for the expansion of technology driven sectors,” noted the MCA paper.

This paper analysed the latest ABS statistical information to gain an in-depth picture of how Australia’s migration program is performing and provides an overview of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of recent Australian immigrants.

It concluded that, “English language proficiency is the primary determinant for migrants in the labour market, more important than both work experience and formal qualifications…improving English language proficiency is the single most effective method to increase the economic benefit [for new migrants]”.

It notes that migrants with low or no language proficiency have historically faced a 10–20 per cent earnings gap. In contrast, the paper notes that newer migrants with very good English proficiency are thriving in the labour market, outperforming even their native English peers who have been in Australia for decades.

The report warned that the gap between those who can and those who cannot speak English well is growing as the economy prioritises skilled work and high tech service industries and noted that due to both skills and English language ability, there is growing gender disparity with female migrants lagging well behind.

The purpose of this article is to provide readers with details about the decision of Justice John Logan of the Federal Court in the case of Eden v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2015) FCA 780 (24 July 2015). 

As my colleague and fellow writer for the Migration Alliance blog, Jerry Gomez reported yesterday, Justice Logan has overturned a decision by the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Senator Michaela Cash, to cancel the visa of Mr Mas Eden.  Mr Eden’s visa was cancelled by the Assistant Minister on the ground that he did not meet the “character test” as a result of his having been convicted for a sexual offence while in Australia. Justice Logan decided to set aside the visa cancellation action on the grounds that it was “unreasonable”, and thus “infected” by jurisdictional error.

The factual background of the Eden case was as follows:

In plans to cut resettlement costs of refugees, the Coalition government is reportedly considering a proposal to fast track visa applications of refugees if they agree to pay AU$19,000 and their family in Australia promise to cover health and welfare costs.

Refugee advocates support the proposals which they say will help advantage refugees who have relatives in Australia with financial means.

"It definitely does advantage refugees who have relatives in Australia with financial means over people who otherwise would have been resettled on the basis of humanitarian need," Refugee Council of Australia chief Paul Power told WAToday but added that the measures, which are based on a pilot established by the former Labor government, would effectively shift the cost burden onto desperate families in Australia and prioritise people with financial means over those in greater need.

Under the pilot, which was established in 2013 a refugee is charged AU$19,124 for the first time and AU$2,680 for subsequent applicants. Mr Power estimates that the application fees plus the cost of airfares, medical checks and payments to community organisations that help facilitate resettlement could potentially cost $45,000 to bring a family of five to Australia

Almost 670 people - mostly from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Somalia have been granted a visa under the pilot which raked in an estimated $2 million for the government.