I have spoken with the National Allegations Assessment Team (NAAT) today and they have requested that if anyone has information relating to Abel Kalpinand Prasad, in the first instance please send the information using the dedicated web-form.  The Department are working on it.   If people are willing to contact the Department directly then the following information has been sent by the DIBP to Migration Alliance:

"The online form is available - https://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/forms/ssl/dob-in/index.htm

General information and links to the online form - http://www.immi.gov.au/Help/Pages/immigration-dob-in-service.aspx

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Great News

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s Annual Report for 2013–14 has reported strong financial performance despite the challenges posed by increased activity and complex operational demands. The report goes on to say that the Significant Investor visa (SIV) exceeded departmental expectations, with $1430 million being injected into Australia’s economy since it commenced in November 2012.

Austrade

In NZ, backpackers get an extra three-month stay for three months of farm work. In Australia, they get an extra year’s stay for such an 88-day work stint. This incentive and farmers’ preference to backpackers over Pacific Islanders is undermining the seasonal worker program, a study by the World Bank and the Australian National University has found.

Australia's seasonal worker program (SWP) established in 2008 as a pilot, and then in 2012 as a permanent program, is aimed to help meet the labour needs in Australia’s horticultural sector and offer labour mobility opportunities to 2,500 Pacific islanders every year.

These workers who can stay here for between 3 and 6 months have to compete with  40,000 backpackers who complete farm stints to get an extra year’s work rights in Australia.

Report author Stephen Howes believes the ready supply of backpackers and financial and administrative burdens on growers using Pacific Islander labour, such as accommodation and private health insurance costs, contributes to the lower demand for seasonal workers, according to a report by the Australian Associated Press (AAP).

He notes that "Backpackers turn up at your door, you don't have to do anything," he told AAP.

However, Prof Howes said most producers surveyed preferred using Pacific Islanders as they believed they were more reliable and harder working.

If your suppliers are chasing you for paid invoices or if you are not receiving your instalment payments, then it may be possible that your computer may have been hacked by a syndicate now targeting Australian businesses.

The scam involves scammers pretending to be legitimate suppliers advising changes to payment arrangements. It may not be detected until the business is alerted by complaints from suppliers that payments were not received, says a report from the Australian consumer watchdog, the ACCC.

The agency has received reports from Australian businesses that a scam operating in the northern hemisphere has headed down under. Businesses trading overseas – particularly with companies in Asia – are at higher risk of being ripped off by these scams. The United States and Canadian Better Business Bureau and the Internet Crime Complaints Centre (IC3) have both issued warnings about this business compromise scam.

How these scams work

• Scammers hack into vendor and/or supplier email accounts and obtain information such as customer lists, bank details and previous invoices.
• Your business receives an email, supposedly from a vendor, requesting a wire transfer to a new or different bank account.
• The scammers either disguise their email address or create a new address that looks nearly identical. The emails may be spoofed by adding, removing, or subtly changing characters in the email address which makes it difficult to identify the scammer’s email from a legitimate address.
• The email may look to be from a genuine supplier and often copy a business’s logo and message format. It may also contain links to websites that are convincing fakes of the real company’s homepage or links to the real homepage itself.
• The scam email requests a change to usual billing arrangements and asks you to transfer money to a different account, usually by wire transfer.
• The scam may not be detected until the business is alerted by complaints from legitimate suppliers that they have not received payment.  

ACCCs recommendations on how you can protect yourself

• Make yours a ‘fraud-free’ business – effective management procedures can go a long way towards preventing scams. Have a clearly defined process for verifying and paying accounts and invoices.
• Consider a multi-person approval process for transactions over a certain dollar threshold.
• Ensure your staff are aware of this scam and understand how it works so they can identify it, avoid it and report it.
• Double check email addresses - scammers can create a new account which is very close to the real one; if you look closely you can usually spot the fake.
• DO NOT seek verification via email – you may be simply responding to the scammer’s email or scammers may have the capacity to intercept the email.
• If you think a request is suspicious, telephone the business to seek verification of the email’s authenticity.
• DO NOT call any telephone number listed in the email; instead, use contact details that you already have on file for the business, or that you have sourced independently – for example, from a telephone directory.
• DO NOT pay, give out or clarify any information about your business until you have looked into the matter further.
• Check your IT systems for viruses or malware - always keep your computer security up-to-date with anti-virus and anti-spyware software and a good firewall.