To all RMA partners

Migration Alliance is very pleased to announce a new partnership with Blackwood Financial Services, a boutique mortgage & commercial finance brokerage company with a strong focus on Migrants and Expatriates.

Blackwood’s Migrant Banking section is headed by Tony Loeckenhoff. As the former Head of NAB’s Global Migrant Banking division, Tony is one of Australia’s best known Migrant bankers. By bringing his big 4 experience to the table, you can be confident of getting the best solution available.

Apparently, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove missed Australia Day commitments and flew to Saudi Arabia to represent Australia following the death of King Abdullah.  To read more about this click here.

Some may say that Tony Abbott awarding Prince Philip a knighthood was a brain snap, mad, crazy etc.  What seems to have missed the main headlines was that our GG, Sir (yes another Sir) Peter Cosgrove, was attending to the death of a man who Anonymous calls a Despot, Tyrant and Monster.

Was Australia in Saudi Arabia because of the smell of oil?

Desparate to control the misleading and fraudulent conduct of some education brokers in Australia, the government is looking into measures to make educational institutions directly liable for the behaviour of their brokers.

Education brokers are not required to be registered unless they intend to provide immigration assistance. To provide immigration assistance, a person must register as a migration agent with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (Office of the MARA).

It is not always easy to separate the two. If you browse the websites of some education brokers, you will find some boasting of how quickly they have managed to obtain student visas for their clients. Yet nowhere on the site is there any indication that they are registered for providing migration advice.

The big issue is how exactly do the authorities weed out brokers dealing in fraudulent student visa applications or misleading and misguiding students about the streamlined visa program and thus potentially damaging the reputation of Australia’s $16 billion dollar education industry.

Regulating education brokers has been an issue the government has been grappling with for a while, according to a report in The Australian. Currently there is an ad hoc system whereby brokers have the option of undergoing voluntary training which some education institutions have put down as a requirement for brokers wanting to represent them. The overriding legislation governing broker conduct however is the very general Australian Consumer Law.

From 31 January 2015 the tribunals will only accept applications for review made on M1, M2 and R1 paper forms with design date 10/14. 

Applications lodged on forms with any other design date on or after 31 January 2015 will be deemed invalid and will not be accepted by the tribunals.

The electronic forms generated by the tribunals’ online application system will remain valid. 

Backpackers enticed to come to Australia with the promise of sunshine, adventure and fair wages are instead falling prey to unscrupulous businesses. DIBP needs to do a lot more to equip working holiday visa holders with information on their rights.

The Fair Work Ombudsman says that too many backpackers are being ripped off. It recently commenced legal proceedings against a Tasmanian business owner for allegedly underpaying 5 backpackers in a brazen scheme targeting backpackers desperately trying to fulfil their sc417 visa obligations.

“We will put to the court that five young backpackers from Italy, the UK and Japan were paid as little as the equivalent of $1.35 an hour when they were entitled to between $22 and $32 an hour, that’s depending on their shift and therefore were collectively underpaid almost $43,000,” Craig Bilstein of the FWO office told the ABC.

According to the ABC the statement of claim filed with the courts accuses the business owner of ‘promising to sign-off on an Italian woman’s 88day regional stint requirement in 2013. He then allegedly paid her $272 for 4 weeks work. And when Fair Work inspectors came knocking, the [the business owner] told them the staff were guests or volunteers rather than workers.”

Penalties for a breach of work conditions are severe with fines up to $10,400 for individuals and $51,000 for a company per contravention, say Craig Bilstein of the FWO office.

So far little has been done to help vulnerable entrants to Australia like backpackers and students to deal with these abuses. The sc417 visa allows those aged between 18 and 30 from 19 countries to work in Australia for 1 year with the prospect for some to extend it to another year if they work for 88 days in a regional area in specific industries, like agriculture and construction.