Hundreds of foreign workers employed in Australia’s $200 billion offshore oil and gas sector have had their work arrangements deemed invalid by the Federal Court in a ruling delivered yesterday.

In 2014, the Assistant Minister for Immigration, Senator Michaelia Cash changed visa regulations to override the Senate and to make it easier to employ overseas workers on offshore oil and gas projects. Her ministerial directions were quickly challenged by the Maritime Union who having lost in their first court action, appealed to the Federal Court which, yesterday, overturned the initial ruling.

A three-judge panel has allowed the appeal and agreed that the legislation could not be used in the way that it had been.

It said the determination by Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash "is not authorised ... and is invalid."

The judgment read:

After receiving multitudes of complaints from MA members and RMAs about ME Alliance being too similar to, and/or passing off as Migration Alliance, we have been in contact with the Office of the MARA.  Their advice is as follows:

"....should a person, including a registered migration agent, have a concern about the actions or behaviour of an agent, the most appropriate course of action would be for each of these agents to lodge a complaint through the OMARA websiteor speak directly to one of our staff.  The complaints process enables the OMARA to appropriately consider complaints lodged in a transparent manner."  

Please assist Migration Alliance to stop ME Alliance (Migration and Education Alliance) from passing off as Migration Alliance.    Please lodge a complaint to the Office of the MARA citing parts 1.10(ia) of the Code of Conduct, 1.11 of the Code of Conduct, and 4.5 of the Code of Conduct if you are:

If policy tweaks don’t get in the way, foreign student numbers are expected to continue in an upward spiral given that the Australian dollar is expected to remain low and the Indian government is now aggressively promoting the education of its masses.

Writing in The Australian today, Trade Minister Andrew Robb has stressed that India is set to become the main source of overseas student enrolments for Australia. He says the market potential of India, where the government has committed to train half a billion of its citizens by 2022, is enormous.

“We can expect from India a repeat of what we have seen from China. India is our top vocational education and training market and the demand over the next decade will be phenomenal,” noted Mr Robb.

Overall, Federal government figures show that student enrolments rose 10 per cent last year, reversing a dive that cost universities and colleges more than one-third of their overseas students.

English language colleges had their best year in 2013-14, with numbers swelling 27 per cent. And while the growth has stabilised to a more manageable 9 per cent, many students are proceeding to further study in vocational or higher education — suggesting big surges ahead for these sectors.

The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has rejected a challenge by a citizen of Liberia to Ministerial cancellation of his Refugee and Humanitarian visa. The Court’s decision in the case, Gjoubeh v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2015) FCAFC 883, was handed down on 24 March 2015 and is in all likelihood the final chapter in a long-running legal battle.  The consequence of the Court’s decision (in the absence of any further intervention in the case by the courts, which appears to be remote) is that the visa holder will lose the right to continue living in Australia, and will have to return to Liberia, where he may face an uncertain future.

This case had its origins in 2007, when the visa holder had sexual relations on two occasions with a 12 year old girl who was also a refugee from Liberia. The visa holder was 42 years old at the time. These incidents resulted in the girl’s becoming pregnant, and then the termination of that pregnancy.

The visa holder was prosecuted over this conduct in the District Court of South Australia. He was initially convicted of one count of rape and two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 14. Following an appeal to the South Australian Court of Criminal Appeal, the rape conviction was quashed. However, the remaining two charges were upheld, and the visa holder was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 27 months.

To all RMA partners

Migration Alliance is very pleased to announce a new sponsor: ETS, creator of the TOEFL® test.

The TOEFL® test is accepted by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to fulfil the English-language proficiency requirements for many Australian sponsored and independent visa categories, including: