Australian Immigration Daily News

A 46-year-old Finnish man will be liable for removal from Australia after downloading and distributing thousands of disturbing child exploitation material from mobile phones while in immigration detention. Mr Tapani Henrik Hakkinen was already a serial offender when he pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material in the Brisbane District Court yesterday (6 August 2020).

The discovery of over 5,855 images and 222 videos on mobile phones, was made at the Brisbane Immigration Detention Centre. Mr Hakkinen was interviewed and charged by Queensland Police, who also seized his mobile phones. Mr Haikkinen had only been in immigration detention for approximately 4 months, after serving 21 months in jail for previous child exploitation material offences.

Detention Operations Commander Graeme Grosse said this is a perfect example of the need for the Prohibiting Items Bill currently before Parliament.

The following email update has been received from the Office of the MARA this morning:

"Following our recent quarterly meeting in which we discussed the upcoming removal of practising certificate (PC) holders from the OMARA regulation, please find below statistics on the current numbers of PC holders in each state and territory for your information. 

Please note work has not yet taken place to identify the home state of the registered agents offshore or identifying those PC holders with a restricted PC, however this gives you an overview of the numbers we are working with.

A total of 30 New Zealand citizens have been removed from Australia this week on two charter flights, one from Perth and another from Sydney, after their visas were cancelled on character grounds. Among the group was a known bikie associate who violently assaulted a Queensland Police officer.

Mr Hylton King, a known associate of the Mongrel Mob outlaw motorcycle club gang (OMCG), has a history of violence including his conviction for police assault in Brisbane. Also removed was Mr John Webster, who had been sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for indecent assault of a child under 12 years.

Both men were removed from Sydney. Of the others removed, convictions included possession of dangerous drugs, persistent exploitation of a child, contravention of domestic violence order, assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, aggravated robbery, assault officer in execution of duty, kidnapping and unlawful use of motor vehicles.

The following email has been received this afternoon from the AAT:

Further to Deputy President’s email of 22 July 2020, two optional, online forms are now available on the Migration and Refugee forms page of the AAT website: an expedited decision request form and a withdrawal form. 

The expedited decision request form, which can be accessed on this web page, will allow  representatives and applicants to make expedited decision requests in accordance with the COVID-19 Special Measures Practice Direction. The form is designed to guide users as to the types of cases that are ordinarily considered suitable for an expedited decision, broken down by visa type. Documentary evidence can be directly uploaded when using the form however representatives should also provide a statement detailing why they consider the case suitable for an expedited decision. 

Earlier this year Skill Select launched EOI Dashboard which was quickly removed due to a number of concerns including exposing sensitive data.

The Department has undertaken a review of the SkillSelect Dashboard to ensure that there is no reasonable chance of an individual being re-identified from the EOI statistics.

The dashboard is now available again and can be accessed via the Department’s SkillSelect web page and comprises a comprehensive library of historic and current statistics in relation to Expressions of Interest (EOIs).  The dashboard is a one-stop shop for SkillSelect EOI statistics and is freely available on demand, without any need to formally request the statistics and wait for such a request to be processed. Bypassing the FOI process will significantly reduce delays in obtaining the same information as has previously been provided in response to FOI requests.