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IAAAS funding axed
Scott Morrison’s announced that taxpayer funded immigration advice for IMA’s would be cut as of today.
I’ve attached a copy of the Dept’s media statement, and here’s a link to the article at news.com.au:
IAAAS-finished.pdf - copy of the Minister's media release
Comments
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Monday, 31 March 2014Libby . Are you talking about those asylum seekers who are in community while holding bridging visa E as a result of the expiry of subclass 449 ?
They even have no right to work and I was wondering what positive activities they do for the community ? -
Monday, 31 March 2014I know there are quite a few RMAs that have hitched their wagons to the IAAAS star and a few well known firms.
It will be time to recast your business but as a general rule if the Government is paying for anything you should always assume that you are skating on thin ice.
If anyone needs any help let me know. -
Monday, 31 March 2014
Christopher , as Persian language migration agent , I attended a job interview with one of the well known legal firm that has a contract with DIBP for IAAAS program. I was told that the target is to lodge 15 protection visa applications within three weeks when I am at the detention Centre!
I am happy that Scott Morrison cancelled the IAAAS for the asylum seekers. I believe , the result will be quality visa applications with a well researched submission with a better outcome for the asylum seekers. As far as I know more than 90 percent of the protection visa applications are refused when they are lodged within the detention centres.
With due respect to my colleagues who lodged these applications , I was wondering how you can manage not to look at the asylum seekers as numbers when you have a target of 15 visa application in three weeks time ? -
Monday, 31 March 2014
The comments above are ridiculous. I am assuming Mohammad Azimi must be talking about Manus or Nauru as there are no onshore mainland detention services being provided for new applications; The Manus/ Nauru situation is very different to what was happening onshore.
These clients on the whole had very good assistance through IAAAS (reflected in the 95% success rate!) - agents not only had to be aware of all the complexity of changing regulations but they also needed to be very up to date with country information. The problem will be now that very vulnerable clients will be picked up by agents who do not understand the situation, think they can make money and charge clients for applications they cannot lodge; already I have had numerous clients tell me they have been advised they can lodge partner visa applications - THEY CANNOT! The clients who had not been allocated IAAAS provided cannot even lodge a valid protection visa application.
Christopher I have no idea why you think that people being paid by Government were skating on thin ice. We IAAAS providers have known since the election last year that contracts and funding were coming to an end; there has been masses of work required outside of the contract agreements and the whole situation at the moment is chaotic as there are so many different streams of clients -some who came under the RSA cohort/ some under POD. some under PV; some Fed crt remittals go back to RRT; some go back to DIBP etc etc etc; for a new person off the block trying to get their head around all this will be a nightmare and MA would do well to be pushing the fact that these clients are extremely vulnerable and agents should be wary unless they are fully aware of the Migration Act and regulations AND policy that affect these various groups of clients.
Lodging 15 applications in three weeks is very achievable Mohammad if you know the country information and know how to take good statements and how to complete the applications properly. Your 90% refusal rate is incorrect - there was a 95% acceptance rate. However acceptance and refusals were often more of an indication of the quality of work of DIBP officers and tribunal members than the migration agents! -
Monday, 31 March 2014
You need more than the country profile put out by DFAT and a whole raft of reports to put of an effective application. It is not just form filling. First impression always counts as to which route the application will take.
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Monday, 31 March 2014
Libby .. Good on you if you can manage 15 applications per three weeks’ time. I can manage one application in a month as I like to lodge decision ready application. I might be very slow but it takes time to gather all the information and get the official translation of the documents, write the submission etc..
Information on CEP is not always up to date especially about Iran.
I believe if an agent who knows the language, the culture and the political problems of a country, s/he will be more helpful to an asylum seeker than an agent who is communicating with an asylum seeker through an interpreter and who has never been living in that particular country.
I was listening the other day to the interview of a DIBP case officer with an asylum seeker at a detention centre through an interpreter . The quality of the interpreting into Farsi was very poor and there were lots of mistakes. I was wondering how someone knows the correct information is passed unto him / her when you do not know the language?
I am sorry that the announcement of the Scott Morrison may not be good news for you, however I believe this is the right decision. When an asylum seeker can pay between 10 to 15 thousand dollars to human traffickers to get to Australia, S/he can afford to pay couple of thousand dollars to use the services of a migration agent.
I see many of these asylum seekers on daily basis. When I come to office at 9:00 to make some decent earnings for my family, they go to gym opposite to my office in Parramatta. -
Monday, 31 March 2014
Beleive me Mohammad I am not concerned about my own business with this announcement; I do not intend to get into a great discussion on the MA blog. My concerns are for the clients who are already getting very bad advice from migration agents who do not understand the refugee /protection visa regulations;
I agree with you that interpreting is a huge issue. I totally disagree with you that someone who speaks their language will be a better migration agent!! I have seen zillions of clients ripped off by well meaning farsi and dari speaking agents; we rarely rely on CEP for country information!!! No good refugee migration agents would rely on CEP;
I agree that many clients who come by boat could have afforded to pay migration agents but it would have cost a fortune for an individual agent to do private work in remote centres; also the mjaority of my clients paid between $3-7000 (not the 10-15000 quote in the media) and they had borrowed the money or sold everything to get the money; they were not people dripping in gold. But I am not an agent/ advocate who says that all asylum seekers are genuine refugees;
cheers and good luck in your work -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
Really? What is a migrant agent?
As far as I know, refugee lawyers are also 'migrant agents'...
"Without the triage service provided by refugee lawyers, it is possible that some unscrupulous migrant agents may exploit the opportunity to drag out proceedings, resulting in unmeritorious court appeals and a further clogging of the system."
http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2014/04/scrapping-legal-aid-refugees-will-cost-more-it-saves· Liana - Allan likes this comment. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
UNSW needs to get a stern call from the Office of the MARA. It seems that their lawyers don't understand that all lawyers in Australia need to be Registered Migration Agents to do the job of a 'refugee lawyers'. Well, I suppose lawyers need to make themselves feel special so they may as well try and trump themselves up to be something more than they really are. Like being a lawyer is somehow supposed to be fantastic and holier than thou. Whatever makes these lawyers happy. They believe their own lies. Then they feed the lies to others. And then the IAAAS funded them based on those lies. Typical lawyers.
I will stick to being a migration agent any day.
Put it this way, if I was a lawyer the last thing I would want to be doing is triage refugee work. Seriously you have to be a pretty crappy lawyer if that is all you ended up doing with your 'awesome degree'. Yes, for all those lawyers out there working at Salvos Legal, IARC and other places, RILC and bludging off the IAAAS...... do you realise you have been getting the equivalent of the immigration dole? Imagine all those triage lawyers who have been existing on government money all this time and now have to make it on their own. It might not be as exciting now huh?
Is this the best those 'refugee lawyers' can come up with is suddenly running down migration agents because they don't have work?
One word. Bludgers. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
One day a professor was discussing a particularly complicated refugee law concept. A pre-law student stopped the professor to ask "Why do we have to learn this stuff?"
"To save lives" the professor responded quickly and continued the academic lecture.
A few minutes later, the same student spoke up again. "So how does the debate over whether a RMA is better than a RMA-lawyer for a refugee save lives?" he persisted.
"It keeps the RMAs out of law school" replied the professor.
The student looked bewildered. He then said "oh I see so they can get on saving lives?"
"Yes....something like that, let's debate this concept shall we class?"· Liana - Allan likes this comment. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
This is a comment from Christopher Levingston, the Convenor of MA and an accredited specialist in immigration Law.
I just read the commentary from the academic at UNSW who expresses concern about the IAAAS loss of funding and the loss of specialist expertise and the risks associated with " unscrupulous migration agents".
This sort of uninformed panic mongering driven by those who have grown fat on the public purse is what we would expect from a vested interest. There is no evidence that the commentator has any experience in the giving of immigration assistance. I've never heard of her before today, never seen her at the RRT , never seen her in Court. However, she does have an opinion about RMAs.
Who needs government funding to do their job? I don't and I don't want it as it is a conflict of interest.
I don't want money from the government ever. I act for individuals whose interests are being traversed by Government. DIBP is my opponent not my piggy bank.
To the commentators , get a real job. Get your hands dirty, act pro bono, get registered as an RMA, stop bleating!· Liana - Allan likes this comment. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
With reference to: http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2014/04/scrapping-legal-aid-refugees-will-cost-more-it-saves
Here is the Professor Jane McAdam bio: http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/profile/jane-mcadam
Jane has obviously dedicated her life to study, research and a bit more research, getting grant after grant after grant. This is great. Jane has chosen her path in life and it is one of study and teaching. Jane has made a career out of research and further education. It is clear that Jane is a talented and gifted human being as well as a very intelligent academic.
There is a place for lawyers like Jane in the world. There is a place for migration agents. In fact there is a place for everyone on this planet.
Perhaps Jane might like to re-visit the comments she made about Scott Morrison, our Immigration Minister in late 2013 below:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/are-they-illegals-no-and-scott-morrison-should-know-better-20131022-2vz6a.html
What gets lost here is that whilst the professor might be technically correct, to me, hers is a triumph of form over substance. What might be great in theory actually needs to have a practical, fast and usable application in reality. What is missing from this argument is the Australian public's views on boat people. What might be thought out in a law school by a professor, has very little practical application when it comes to dealing with and making decisions for the general population. The average Joe Blow wants to know when the boats will stop and that they will remain stopped. The average Joe Blow doesn't care about, know about or want to know about the theories of a professor when they can see day after day boat after boat arriving on our shores and people dying at sea. The average Aussie just wants it all to stop.
The average Joe Blow wants to know why the government is spending $100 million paying people to process non-citizen applications when Aussie families are living on the breadline and could use a little extra money. Aussies care about money and what the government spends it on, especially if it is a non-Aussie. Aussies care about Australia being in a national debt black hole and they want it fixed. They want the budget in surplus, fast.
In this article the professor says Scott Morrison should know better. She is right. He did know better. Morrison is able to discern the forest from the trees.
Whilst the professor quibbles over the terminology and the incorrectly applied word, 'illegals', Morrison is out there on the front line making the hard decisions and saving lives by stopping drownings at sea. It's been well over 100 days now and there are now no new boats. Therefore there are no 'illegals' arriving. Morrison has solved the problem of the terminology 'illegals', by getting rid of it all together. No more boats. No more 'illegals'. No more terminology to worry about.
Morrison did know better after all, just like the professor said he should. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
Liana you successfully put a professor in her place this night. What an accurate thought stream. Logical minded and clear. Well researched data. Conclusive. It's hard to argue with what you have said. I am scared! I didn't know you were smarter than a professor. Thank the many gods we have Liana to stand up for us. Christopher is always Legend defending agents like Indian warrior. Liana is silent and deadly weapon come to defend our profession.
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Thursday, 03 April 2014
Parbinder here.
Thank you Liana.
Nobody really wants to know what these university academics are thinking in their university caves. We people have a living to earn and people to help. Whilst they are there theorizing you are out there actively changing world we live in. Professor are so slow by the time they have finished their idea the world did already move on and a solution was found another way. I send blessings of Lakshmi to you Liana. -
Thursday, 03 April 2014
Liana , funny la you. Reminds me of a boastful professor. Somewhere in India, a professor hired a boat man to paddle him across a turbulent river on a stormy evening. Mid way the river the professor asked the boatman if he has been to a institution of higher learning,. The boatman replied he is but a humble boat man all his life. The professor asked the boatman if he he knew of trigonometry. The boatman again said he does not know what it is as he is but a humble boatman. The professor continued on his way of questioning the boatman does he know this , that and so on exhibiting his superior status in life. To all of that the boat man with humility responded saying he but a humble village boatman. In the mddle of the river the boat struck a rock and sprung leak. The boatman turned to the learned professor and asked, professor can you swim and the professor panicked and said he does know how to swim. The boatman advised the professor to his prayers and call on his trigonometry to assist and with that the boatman jumped out of the rapidly sinking boat and swam to the shore.
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Friday, 04 April 2014
Robert the funniest part of your story is that if the professor survives, the professor will sue the humble boat man and have him charged with criminal negligence, hiding a crime, the cops would be called in. The boat man arrested. The professor a hero and the boat man a scum bag. Don't forget lawyers have a way of twisting things to ensure justice is always theirs. Unless the boat man has one last trick up his sleeve.....
Christopher Levingston v The Professor
Reality v theory -
Friday, 04 April 2014
How would the professor fund legal action? A grant?
Immigration blog
Agents who think they may be able to assist these clients must be very careful to read and understand the migration Act as the majority of clients who have not been assisted under IAAAS still have a bar preventing them from applying for any visa including a protection visa.