Australian Immigration Daily News

On 21 August 2013 the DIAC released information on it's website about a new Australian visa application centre in Guangzhou.  For more information on this please see this link:http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/new-visa-processing.htm

While the 457 “crackdown” comprised the most publicised aspects of migration law changes implemented by the government on 1 July 2013, a lesser-known change was introduced to the onshore partner visa processing regime that prohibits applicants or their migration agents from lodging onshore partner visa applications in person at DIAC Offices.

Item 1214C(3)(fa), added to Schedule 1 of the Migration Regulations 1994 as of 1 July 2013, states:

(fa)      An application must be made:

I don't think that the PNG solution is really a solution if it is not deterring the boats.  Yes another boat carrying about 105 people on board has capsized just north Christmas Island today.

The boat is apparently in Australian waters and Australian authorities are currently on the scene.  Somehow a person on board the boat managed to send a request for help to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority sometime this morning.

Today at about 12:20pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, the HMAS Parramatta arrived on the scene and reported that the vessel carrying asylum seekers had capsized.  A resue mission is now underway with Customs Dash 8 aircraft being used to move the people from the scene.   A boat from the Australian navy has also been sent in and then a merchant boat is about to arrive to assist.  Then to top it off a P3 Orion aircraft will be arriving to assist this afternoon.

The latest boat to sink in Australian waters comes as the Labor Government faces a legal challenge to its recently announced 'PNG Solution' which in my opinion will end up just like the 'Malaysia NO SOLUTION'.

It seems the boats do not stop coming and that the crisis of the boats has not stopped with Labor's next plan. 

It is my view that people want to escape places of terror and war and they will do anything to get away from persecution, even if it means they will be resettled in PNG.   At least they will be safer than where they came from.

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Scott Staniforth will be presenting at the Migration Alliance Perth Conference which starts on 6th September 2013.  Scott will be speaking from 2:00pm to 3:30pm on Friday 6th September 2013.  Legal Training Australia is the CPD provider running the conference and is the proud supporter of Migration Alliance.  For more information on how to book into this Perth event and to obtain 10 points of Migration CPD please click here.

Be quick to secure your seat at this event as seats will sell out.

For more infomation and a biography see: Scott-Staniforth-Biography.pdf.

Changes for SNOL in South Australia have been made to their occupations list.  The latest version of the SNOL for South Australia is located on their website here and is dated 19/08/2013:

https://www.migration.sa.gov.au/SNOL_Data

Changes such as special conditions and off-listing criteria apply to certain occupations especially ICT occupations.