Having failed in its first application for a labour agreement 18 months ago, “ethno-specific” aged care provider Fronditha Care has now been given the green light to sponsor 60 overseas personal care workers in the first such agreement to be struck with the Federal Government, according to a report by the Australian Ageing Agenda.

The three-year labour agreement, which had union backing, will allow the Victorian provider to recruit Greek-speaking care workers under the same wages and conditions as local employees.Under the terms of the deal, the overseas workers will need to have a Cert III in Aged Care attained locally and an English language competency of 5 in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

Fronditha chief executive George Lekakis told Australian Ageing Agenda the deal would allow some of the organisation’s Greek-speaking workers currently employed on a student visa, which permits them to work 20 hours per week, to be transferred to full-time employment on a four-year visa.

Former staff that have returned to Greece will also be recruited back to the organisation under this program to help meet the communication needs of residents, he said.

“The care workers will be offered an annualised salary of over $54,000 and health insurance for each year of the labour agreement,” said Mr Lekakis. The organisation can recruit up to 20 overseas care workers per year under the deal.

The migration advisory industry has taken a terrible hit with the allegations of widespread fraud in Australia’s immigration system. Unfortunately, professional migration advisors have been "tarred with the same brush as unregistered agents and education agents and the word 'agent' has become synonymous with dodgy". Perhaps, the time has come to consider a name change?

Fairfax journalists have claimed that leaked documents from the department of immigration allegedly show that ‘migration agents’  perpetrate the fraud. Such sweeping statements thoughtlessly and unfortunately tarnish the reputation of thousands of professionals practicing ethically in a highly regulated industry.

“Migration Alliance is sick of seeing news about 'agents' in the press.  We are sick of being tarred with the same brush as unregistered agents and education agents and the word 'agent' has become synonymous with dodgy.  I am thinking of re-naming our members Registered Migration Practitioners (RMP). Hopefully this will go some way to distinguish registered practitioners and lift the type of work we do“ says Liana Allan.

The word “Agent” is a simple generic term to indicate a person who is authorised to act on behalf of another. There is no element of professionalism in that definition. Whereas, the word “Practitioner” is generally accepted to mean a person engaged in a discipline or profession and is expected to exercise skill and due care gained from prior learning and experience in the execution of their work. It is no wonder that legal and medical professions use the terms Legal Practitioners and Medical Practitioners, respectively as opposed to Legal Agent or Medical Agent.

Is it time for RMAs to distinguish themselves from unregistered agents and be renamed RMPs? Please share your views.

Australia’s Immigration Department is in crisis, according to a Fairfax report. The report claims that their investigative journalists have uncovered internal DIBP documents showing that DIBP has lost control of the immigration process and that over half of the General Skilled Migration applications are associated with some form of fraud.

Hundreds of pages of internal government documents obtained by Fairfax media apparently lay bare a system festering with visa fraud, migration crime and an impotent enforcement capacity, says a Fairfax media report.

There are allegations apparently in the leaked DIBP documents that over half of the General Skilled migration applications had some form of fraud linked to them and were labelled ‘non-genuine’.

The report alleges that ‘migration agents’ perpetrate the fraud. There are claims that some migration representatives purchased false work records for applicants. One of the allegedly leaked documents states:

“Based on testimony from applicants and informants, the street value of a fraudulent work reference ranges from between $4000-$10000, generally paid in cash.”

This email came in today from a member of Migration Alliance:

I had received a refusal for a nomination. I did not understand the reason for refusal as the case officer did not provide any evidence in support of her decision. I asked the decision to be escalated. After almost two weeks of wait and couple of reminders, I received the following reply from the Team Leader

Can you please help me understand the Team Leader’s comments -

Senator George Brandis QC, infamous for proclaiming that people had the ‘‘right to be a bigot’’ in his drive to wind back section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has been “rolled” and “humiliated” according to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten after the Coalition’s “embarrassing backdown” on the the controversial bill.

Before last year’s election, the Coalition had promised to repeal section 18C, which became known as the "Bolt laws" after News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt was prosecuted under the existing legislation for two comment piece on white-skinned Aboriginals.

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to: "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people" because of their race or ethnicity".

Senator Brandis', (the Attorney-General) draft bill proposed a new section that would make it: "unlawful for a person to do an act ... that is reasonably likely to vilify another person or a group of persons or intimidate another person or group of persons".

The proposed law would have removed protections against offending, insulting or humiliating someone.