Late in day on 4 February 2015 - witness statement by Alex Tees, Solicitor and ex SVC Legal, uploaded to this website

11:44am on 4 February 2015 - email received from Shafat Hussain claiming fake emails sent to MA under his name (see comments section of this blog)

5:15pm on 3 February 2015 - SVC Legal Australia and Abel Prasad deny allegations and threaten to sue  SVC-to-MA-3-Feb-15.pdf

Various commentaries on the speeches of the new head of Australia’s Immigration department, Michael Pezzullo, suggest that Australia will be looking to tighten immigration policy and possibly make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain permanent residency.

Michael Pezzullo is reported to have encouraged his staff to change the way they think about the department’s role and to question whether the “waves of settlement” in Australia’s past would or should endure, according to a report in The Australian.

In an Australian day speech to his staff he reportedly said, “…we should increasingly reframe our national self-understanding and speak more of ­engaging with the world, and not just settling our land. The vestiges of insularity and living ensconced in our sheltered land, far from our ‘home’, have passed away…

“More than settlement, we should look to become Australia’s gateway to the world, and the world’s gateway to Australia. On occasions, at times of heightened threat such as caused by terrorism or pandemics, we will need to act as the gatekeepers and, as necessary, man the ramparts and protect our borders" said Mr Pezzullo.

Tony Kevin, Emeritus Fellow at Australian National University recently wrote on the website, the conversation.com that the Australian government is in the throes of a major recasting of traditional immigration and border security doctrines and institutions. The changes are being led ‘quietly’ by its new head, Mr Pezzullo who he says has hinted that “Australia is now essentially full.

“The ‘original mission of 1945 to build the population base’ has been accomplished. Now the focus is on short-term in-and-out flows as the national interest demands” observes Mr Kevin.

Mr Kevin says that there are large gaps with Mr. Pezzullo’s doctrines. It is particularly harsh towards asylum seekers who arrive independently at Australia’s maritime borders and adds that, “[Mr Pezzullo] has no words on Australia’s international good citizen role, its responsibility to protect abroad and not contribute to wars that trigger new refugee flows, or our responsibilities to observe international conventions on the law of the sea and maritime search and rescue.

Migration Alliance members who are also MIA members:

Written reports from our sources within the MIA have indicated that at a recent MIA EGM, Angela Chan and the Board of the MIA announced (with motion proposed) to remove the 2 term limitations to Directors tenure.

Further information on this is being sought but due to the difficulty in obtaining real information from the MIA's central control area it might take a little more time.

The DIBP no longer accept Bridging Visa B's electronically.  The following is a message being sent to RMAs:

We are no longer able to accept Bridging Visa applications electronically.

It must be hand delivered to your nearest Immigration office or posted in. Posting it in may take up to 14 days to get to the Perth office for processing so it may be more beneficial to attend your nearest immigration office.

This information has been taken from the NSW government website:

NSW is introducing a selection-based invitation process in 2015. This will be implemented from February 2015 onwards.

Under the selection and invitation process for the 190 program, prospective candidates can only apply for NSW nomination if they have been selected from SkillSelect and invited by NSW Trade & Investment.