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WARNING: Office of the MARA
Migration Alliance members, DIBP and I am sure the Office of the MARA might not be surprised to learn that RMAs have had just about enough of the Office of the MARA.
The red tape that they have wrapped us all up in over the last couple of years has become oppressive to say the least. The Office of the MARA have, to all intents and purposes, stifled the profession just like the unions sought to stifle the 457 visa programme with their red tape.
What has become obvious to RMAs is that the Office of the MARA have become a law unto themselves.
From ever increasing and ridiculously complex CPD requirements wrapped in more and more red tape, to investigations where officers from the OMARA write emails to agents in a manner which presumes the agent is guilty....... agents like Abdullah have had enough.
To read the type of tactics the Office of the MARA use when they make an investigation read below.
This is the treatment you can look forward to from the Office of the MARA if a complaint is lodged against you as an agent, and a victim of the Eddie Kang - Singapore Oil problem:
Liana
Thank you for prompt reply
I would like Migration alliance to work with me on this
I am also preparing invoices to send to Mr. Kang for all the work I have done for Singaporeoil
and not paid as promised
Abdulla
From: xxxxxxx<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >
To: "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. " <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >; "'This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. '" <'This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. '>
Sent: Thursday, 3 October 2013 2:00 PM
Subject: FW: Notice under Section 308 of the Migration Act 1958 Response Overdue [DLM=For-Official-Use-Only]
For-Official-Use-Only
Dear Mr Ali
Your response is now overdue and I have not received any information from you.
Please advise whether you have sent me any information, and if not when they will arrive.
If I do not hear from you, I may proceed to take the complaint to the next stage, taking into account your conduct and your lack of cooperation in responding to this complaint.
Regards
xxxxx xxx
A/g Assistant Director
Professional Standards and Integrity
Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority
Telephone: (02) 9078 3597
Fax: (02) 9078 3591
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.mara.gov.au
I am in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
For-Official-Use-Only
From: xxxxx xxx
Sent: Monday, 26 August 2013 9:55 AM
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; 'This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. '
Subject: Notice under Section 308 of the Migration Act 1958 [DLM=For-Official-Use-Only]
For-Official-Use-Only
Dear Mr Ali
Further to my phone conversation with you just now regarding a complaint lodged by Mr Hae Song Jung and his wife, Mrs Younga Shin, I would like to request that you provide further information to assist me to further investigate their complaint.
I have attached a request for further information under section 308 o0f the Migration Act and relevant attachments to assist you to provide your response.
Your comments are required within 28 days after the date of this email. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions regarding this email. I am on leave for the next two weeks, but can respond on my return.
Regards
xxxxx xxx
Position Removed
Professional Standards and Integrity
Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority
Telephone: (02) 9078 3597
Fax: (02) 9078 3591
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.mara.gov.au
I am in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
What irks me is the following.
1. The Office of the MARA plan to subject RMAs to the IELTS test but xxxxx xxx doesn't form a proper English sentence:
example: 'Please advise whether you have sent me any information, and if not when they will arrive.'
2. xxxxx xxx makes remarks about RMA Abdullah Ali's 'conduct' and 'lack of cooperation' in the same sentence as telling him she may proceed to take the complaint to the next stage. Essentially, in my opinion this forms a view about Ali which tells Ali she has already, in essence, made her mind up about his whole attitude and the fact he doesn't want to cooperate. The officer doesn't bother to find out why.
Does this officer think that by warning an agent in advance about how bad they are, that they will somehow force the agent to do what they want? Is this a fair investigation process for the RMA? Does this threatening email from the officer follow any procedure for complaints handling or adhere to the PS code of conduct?
Now onto the 'WARNING' which appears against some migration agent profiles on the OMARA website.
The Office of the MARA provide warnings about migration agents on their website in bold and red. Here is our warning to the Office of the MARA. If OMARA continue to conduct investigations in this style then officers will also be named and shamed on this website with a WARNING. Just like OMARA name and shame RMAs on the Office of the MARA site. We have previously written to the Office of the MARA and explained that it is unfair to have 'WARNINGS' placed against currently registered agents' names on the OMARA website. I am not going to provide a link here to any examples because I don't think the agents who have been subjected to warnings need their noses rubbed in the dirt any more than the Office of the MARA have already done.
The reason I have decided to write this blog is because 'consultation' with the Office of the MARA doesn't work. The Office of the MARA don't want to hear what RMAs think. They pretend they do, but they don't. They want to dictate the terms of their engagement with agents and pretend to consult. Yes, I have plenty of examples.
Abdullah has asked me to expose this chain of emails and the investigation. This is not a man who isn't cooperating. This is a man who, it would seem, has no faith in the Office of the MARA to do a proper job and no faith the officer is actually investigating without bias.
Perhaps now this has been exposed the Office of the MARA will start to listen and cooperate. If not, there will be more to come (yes OMARA we can also threaten action if you don't want to abide by fair processes) as agents will not tolerate being bullied and harassed during the investigation of complaints.
What this will also do is show the world that OMARA is incapable of properly regulating the migration agent profession. A lot of agents are lawyers. A lot of us have been around in real businesses, the corporate world, the real commercial world for long enough to understand that we are being managed and regulated by a bunch of officers with less education, less knowledge and less skill than they people they are trying to regulate. Not only that but agents are used to fighting to get ahead. Agents are used to dealing with client and commercial problems in the real world. We have not lived inside a safe bureaucratic jungle. This means we have been exposed to a lot more than most officers in the OMARA. This means we won't put up with it if the officers start to deal with us in sub-standard ways. Officers need to understand that migration agents are professionals. We won't be brought down by a regulator with standards below ours.
If other agents believe they have been bullied or harassed by the Office of the MARA please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . No information will be posted up here on this blog without permission. No information will be provided to a third party without your express permission.
Comments
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Sunday, 20 October 2013Guilty before proving innocent - MARA approach investigations where agent is always guilty and needs to prove they are not
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Monday, 21 October 2013
This is nothing. Have you experienced the tyrannical conduct of the old MARA under the MIA. That bunch of power hungry MIA/MARA Board members acted more like summary executioners with h extra contemporaneous investigation on you whole business even before being found guilty of breach of the code. Those clowns held the agents in terror . Ask Glenn Pereira and the like. This present OMARA is a soft purring kitten compared to the previous MARA. May be Christopher, who resigned in disgust, would bear witness to what I am saying,
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Monday, 21 October 2013
Let's get a new regulator. These people are not up to it. Who are they to regulate us? They don't even have training in what we do. None of them. Finally exposed. Hoorah. MIA won't do anything so we rely on MA.
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Monday, 21 October 2013
Liana, we have had enough of MARA!
Find below part of a message I sent to MARA not long ago:
"……it is likely that I will abandon MARA registration for 2014.
I must add that during the last 7 years since I moved my operation in Romania, I have not received a great deal of support from MARA. In the contrary, I remember the hard time I received from MARA in the year when the Australian Consulate closed down in Bucharest and MARA was asking for certified documents related to my repeat registration without taking into consideration the local conditions in Romania, whereby the Public Notary offices are refusing to certify signatures on documents in languages
other that Romanian.
It was a time when I was proud to be member of MARA … lately I start to feel suffocated due to MARA imposing more and more obligations on migration agents without proper investigation of the need for those obligations. I am paying a hefty registration fee each year but I receive very little in return….”
I feel we need a responsible regulator for our profession! -
Monday, 21 October 2013
Great Job......you guys are real supports of RMA not MIA or MARA.
We all need change now enough of MARA bulling. -
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
very good action, these government staff should finally know they are in a country of representative government and a country of people. all people dealing with the government should likewise make logbooks of their dealing with the government staff and drop down their rubbish attitude and manners. At each year end, the records should be delivered to the parliament and let the ministers how "good" their executive branch is!
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Monday, 29 September 2014
Liana sorry I comment on you post here I'm from South Africa and yes I know a lot of fellow South Africans having the same problems.Is it possible I can inbox you or can I ask from now on where do we go to then.
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Tuesday, 30 September 2014
Ockert Liana is on help@migrationalliance.com.au
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Saturday, 14 February 2015
I note that companies are not permitted to be registered as migration agents (Migration Act s286) and no person may either provide immigration assistance or receive a fee for providing immigration assistance, (Migration Act ss280,281) unless registered or unless it is immigration legal assistance provided by a lawyer.
A case on point is BDS Recruit Pty Ltd v Parris and Shah Pty Ltd [2008] NSW Supreme Court 614, which held “P & S is a corporation and therefore is not permitted to be registered as a migrant agent (ss 286 & 287 of Migration Act). Accordingly P & S was not permitted to give immigration assistance (s 280). Under s 281(1) it was prohibited from asking for or receiving any fee or other reward for giving immigration assistance. As previously stated P& S was giving immigration assistance.”
While clearly there is an exemption which permits an incorporated legal practice to receive fees for immigration legal assistance provided by a lawyer, I have been unable to locate any provision of the Act which would permit a corporation to either provide or receive a fee for immigration assistance which is not immigration legal assistance provided by a lawyer.
Nevertheless, MARA continues to register Migration Agents who say they intend to provide services via corporations and MIA president herself provides her immigration practice via a corporation - so is anyone aware as to how that can be permissible or condoned by MARA?
Immigration blog
Spot on Liana. You say what we all think. At least you have the guts to speak up. Most of us are too afraid to speak up against the MARA because we know nobody will listen.