The Sydney Morning Herald has revealed that that blacklists of immigration lawyers and agents compiled by the Department of Immigration are still being used, despite government promises they had been removed.

“Documents dated late May show the lists are still being used to rate applicants for partner visas according to which lawyer or agent they have acting on their behalf. The document shows the lists remain part of a "risk tiering tool" that adds three points to an application and may affect the outcome. (The more points, the higher risk rating the application receives.)” reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, DIBP has again denied the lists are still in use. A DIBP Spokesperson said, “Consistent with previous statements, the agents-of-concern lists were removed from use last year as the information was out of date.”

The department had previously said the lists were created in 2010 and were supposed to have been destroyed. The discovery of the blacklists prompted a departmental audit.

The discovery of the lists also prompted calls for the Commonwealth Ombudsman to investigate.

The following has just been received by Migration Alliance from the MRT-RRT:

Dear Community Liaison Network members

I am pleased to provide the community liaison update for August 2014 in this new format.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome some of our new members to the community liaison network and to thank our current membership for their continuing support in attending community liaison network meetings.

As you know we concluded the first round of community liaison network meetings for 2014 in May 2014.  The minutes from those meetings are available on our website in the community liaison archives.  I encourage you to review these minutes as they provide information on a range of relevant topics, including the RRT Practice Direction.

Any feedback you would like to provide about these updates is welcome. If you have any suggestions or comments, please forward them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Announcement Stakeholder Engagement Statement The tribunals have developed a new Stakeholder Engagement Statement. The Stakeholder Engagement Statement sets out our commitment to providing a professional and courteous service to review applicants and other persons who come into contact with the tribunals. The tribunals aim to treat everyone with courtesy, respect and dignity, as outlined in our Service Charter.

Announcement Caseload report to 31 July 2014 The tribunals have begun the 2014-15 financial year on a positive note with over 2,000 decisions made in July.  MRT decisions were slightly below lodgements providing a 91% clearance rate for the month, while almost three times as many RRT decisions were made as lodgements received, giving a clearance rate of 272% for the RRT for the month.

Announcement Member recruitment The tribunals welcomed 17 newly appointed members in July.  Each member has been appointed for a three year term. Their appointments are expected to boost the tribunals’ decision-making capacity, adding initially to the focus on protection and partner caseloads over the next 12 months.

Report Online lodgements Since the implementation of the tribunals’ online lodgement facility, over 5570 applications have been lodged electronically, with more than 60% of applications now being lodged online.

Kind regards,

Kay Ransome
Principal Member

If you have any queries or feedback please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
For further information about the MRT-RRT, please visit our website.

Professional-Development-Ingram-update.pdf

See above for the new legislative instrument which prescribes the Practice Ready Programme as a mandatory activity (see the attached IMMI 14/038) as at yesterday's date 14 August 2014.

We are gathering more information at the moment and will write a full story and summary on this change this afternoon.

Interestingly there was no announcement about this change from the Office of the MARA yesterday.

Former State President and National Board Member of the Migration Institute of Australia Mark Glazbrook has called for the introduction of  a two-tier RMA registration scheme, whereby, “migration agents that meet the necessary criteria …would be granted a higher level of accreditation than their peers, and extended streamlined processing rights that make it more attractive for applicants to engage their services,” according to a recent report on the “In Business South Australia” website: http://www.in-business.com.au/news/story/2014-8-12/18852

The report states that the partnership would be similar to the model recently proposed in New Zealand, with responsibility for visa application processing shared between government and approved industry representatives.

The Migration Alliance cannot agree with this proposal. There are currently over 5000 RMAs. The proposed scheme mocks the effectiveness of the MARA Code of Conduct which in essence is meant to put registered practitioners on a similar playing field in order to provide competitive, accessible and professional services to a diverse range of people. However, the MA is not against experienced practitioners being granted ‘Specialist Accreditation’ as is the case currently with Lawyers with the various state law institutes.

MA believes that the big issue that must be addressed is unregistered practice. This must be the focus at present given all the media hype about widespread rorting of Australia’s immigration system. Once unregistered practices is minimised or better still stopped, then perhaps a system whereby applications lodged by experienced registered practitioners are allowed streamlined processing ahead of direct public applications ought to be considered.

Liana Allan of the Migration Alliance says, “The department of immigration must develop a partnership of trust with the migration advisory industry. DIBP must recognise the professionalism of registered practitioners and not mock the entire OMARA registration system by dealing with RMAs in the same light as applications from the general public.

Thousands of jobs are in demand with roles like Carpenters, Plumbers, Electrical Mechanics, Electrical Trades Assistants, Crane Operators, Riggers, Doggers, Formworkers, Pipelayers, and Concretors expected to lead the occupation list for the estimated 4-year construction phase of the massive $34 billion Ichthy gas project in the Northern Territory.

The list which is yet to be finalised is expected to include these jobs that are currently in demand by the project. (http://iminco.net/3500-nt-jobs-ichthys-gas-project-darwin/). In addition to this, support services jobs like retail managers, bus drivers, restaurant supervisors, plant operators and chefs may be considered for the list in the "designated area migration agreement".

According to the Australian Financial Review, the Northern Territory is set to be approved under the first so-called “designated area migration agreement” followed by Western Australia’s Pilbara.

The agreements are designed to free up businesses outside the resources industry to hire semi-skilled workers without having to meet the strict language, salary and training requirement of other migration programs.

A spokesman for Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash said the Territory agreement would be in place shortly and the Pilbara deal “should be in place by the end of the year”.