Regardless of whether a crime is proven, the minister for immigration will be allowed to strip the Australian citizenship of dual-nationals, under proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act.

The intended changes are reportedly aimed at people with links to terrorist groups. The government has started a broad review of Australian citizenship and is looking to tighten that grant criteria as part of its measure to counter radicalisation and safeguard the nation’s social cohesion, according to a report in The Australian.

“Under the legislation that we intend to introduce in the next few weeks, if the minister is satisfied …, he may, subject ultimately to judicial review, strip the Australian citizenship from those individuals and obviously they will then no longer have an entitlement to return to Australia,” announced Prime Minister Tony Abbot.

Dual-nationals stripped of their Australian citizenship by the Immigration Minister would be allowed to seek review of the decision to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and Federal Court.

The immigration minister will rely on the advice of intelligence agencies in the decision. Mr Peter Dutton, admitted that it will be “very difficult of course to gather sufficient evidence to satisfy an Australian court beyond reasonable doubt that that person committed that offence in that part of the world.”

Former attorney general and immigration minister, Mr Philip Ruddock has been appointed as a special envoy for citizenship and community engagement in the broader review of Australian citizenship. Mr Ruddock said: “We offer people respect for their race, their country of origin, their religion, their cultures, but we do have expectations that all who make a commitment to this nation and its future, will observe the laws of Australia. There is nothing new in that.”

An increase in the number of allegations relating to the facilitating of fake marriages for visas has prompted a crackdown by the department of immigration on the scam. In a joint effort with the department of Human Services, the move will target welfare recipients who are on single payments but have declared sponsorship of a partner for immigration purposes.

Using the new data-matching programme, a joint media release by the two department states that it will be easier to identify fake couples who are fraudulently claiming social security payments, or committing migration fraud.

“This data-matching programme is part of a whole-of-government approach to fraud detection and prevention. People who deliberately take advantage of Australia’s welfare and migration system will be caught,” sated, the Immigration minister, Mr Peter Dutton, adding,” “The consequences are serious – people may be forced to repay the benefits they were not entitled to, have their visa application refused, or face criminal charges.”

Human Services minister Ms Marise Payne said, “Last financial year, data-matching activities conducted by my Department returned $132.7 million in net benefits to government.

Recently, two people were ordered to stand trial over an alleged visa marriage scam in Brisbane.

Chetan Mohanlal Mashru and Divya Krishne Gowda were, accused of arranging more than a dozen fake weddings. The Magistrates Court was told the ceremonies took place in Brisbane around 2011 so Indian men could stay in Australia.

After years of making decisions for Australian immigration clients, and hard decisions at that, I thought that I would share what I have learned from the decision making process.

Most decisions we make, we make with other people.  It is my view that it is genuinely better to make decisions collaboratively.  The reasons for this are as follows:

• The risk is spread
• The decisions are mostly better
• Individual shortcomings are mitigated
• There is a shared vision and shared responsibility
• There can be the building of consensus and buy-in
• People feel included which increases motivation

Whilst decision making is hard to evaluate as we can't see the alternative universe, what I have learned to be true, is that if you average the decisions of a bunch of people then you reduce error. 

Surging numbers of students, tourists and workers on short-term visas mean that as many as 1.9 million foreigners are likely to be in the country at any one time over the course of 2015, according to Michael Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Immigration.

Over the year, more than 5 million visas are expected to be issued this year, said Mr Pezzullo, in a speech at the Australian National University (and reported in The Australian). Although over three quarters of those numbers will be tourists, the number of traditional permanent migrants is also surging, with this year's intake likely to surpass the existing record of 185,000, which was set in 1969.

Mr Pezzulo pointed to a rapid shift in the ethnic composition of new migrants away from Europe towards east and southern Asia.

The number of Chinese-born Australians has more than tripled to almost 450,000 in the space of two decades, he said.

Those born in India has risen more than four-fold in that time, to almost 400,000. 

Figures just released by the department of immigration revealed that some 450 foreigners in Australia have had their visa cancelled since July 2014 after being convicted of serious crimes in Australia. Another 100 visa applications were refused under character provisions.

Compared with the previous year this represents an increase of over 450 per cent in visa cancellations and an increase of over 40 per cent in visa refusal decisions. Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton said these actions prove the Government is serious about protecting Australians from foreign criminals.

The DIBP media release noted that in the same period, of the 450 visas cancelled, 34 removals have taken place from New South Wales, with Western Australia (13), Victoria (11) and Queensland (10) together accounting for another 34 removals. 

“My message to the minority of people who travel to Australia and violate community standards is that they should consider themselves on notice; we will continue to target you by cancelling your visa and will remove you from Australia as soon as possible,” stated the Minister.

Under changes made by the Australian Government, mandatory visa cancellations can apply to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape, sexual assault and drug crime.

Over the last year, seventy-one people have been deported following criminal convictions in Australia, including nine pedophiles, six rapists and one murderer.