Australian Immigration Daily News

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Dear Angela

I refer to your MIA newsletter at point 3 'Constitutional Changes - Upcoming EGM' and attached fact sheet.

This is a disgraceful and desperate bid by the MIA Board to preserve the vested interest of a few incumbents who are simply refusing to allow fresh ideas and approaches that could possibly help resurrect an ailing agency. You are setting up the MIA for further failure with this motion.

Your first 6 paragraphs which refer to public listed corporations are misguided illusions of grandeur: the MIA is a non-profit organisation with no shareholders.  The MIA’s bottom line is to properly represent a wide and ever-changing membership base. Constantly adapting and changing to your members’ needs and requirements must then be a guiding principle. How can you do this if you are not constantly renewing the leadership and allowing the flow of new ideas?

You are fundamentally flawed in your observation that  the motion helps retain 'corporate memory'. Corporate memory can be retained by the organisation itself, generally in the form of a CEO.  The decision not to appoint an independent, professional CEO after the departure of Maureen Horder has led to what is in effect an anomaly, that is a President acting through a former member of staff, namely Kevin Lane.

Your domination of the board and the strength of your personality has largely dictated the direction of the MIA and the success or failure of the MIA is largely your responsibility as the Chair of the Board.

It is widely noted that your presidency has entrenched the overall secrecy which has always existed at the MIA and which underpins the deliberations of the Board.

MIA members are kept in the dark and important matters, such as the reasons for Maureen Horder's sudden departure, and the settlement in my defamation action against the MIA, are but two examples of the default to secrecy.   The third is last year when you sent a letter to Migration Alliance threatening to take legal action.  I can guarantee your members didn't learn about that.

After consulting with joint members, I am personally of the view that the current board of the MIA is afflicted with the virus of inward thinking and an overall desire to please DIBP over and above the interests of the Members.

Members of Migration Alliance, who are also your members, inform me that their greatest complaint is the lack of relevance of the MIA.  For example, how is it that the MIA as an institution, as at 11:45am today, has 2499 twitter followers?  I have 2818 followers and I am just one single person with one single voice.  My suggested answer is RELEVANCE of messaging. 

Members complain that there is a failure to accommodate the membership.  This is an expression of an organisation that has failed to embrace change since its inception.  The decision to conduct an EGM on the eve of Chinese New Year reflects an organisation which is completely out of touch with its membership.  This is the equivalent, if you are Chinese, and I am sure I do not need to tell you this, of having an EGM on Christmas Eve.  Members have written to you about this to no avail.

The EGM on the 18th February 2015 will see you lose the motion and there will be, inevitably a spill of the board so that fresh blood can come onto the board and refresh the organisation.

In my view the key to the future success of the MIA is a new board, new blood, new vision and a new CEO which can truly represent members and the profession. 

Today I have applied to re-join the MIA by faxing in my application form, payment, two nominations, OMARA registration copy and CV.  We will wait with anticipation to see how long it takes for my application to be processed.  I doubt it will take long as I was a former member, and was on the NSW Professional Practice Panel for the MIA before establishing Migration Alliance.  

The reason that I have applied to join the MIA is that I can see that the best way forward for our Profession would be for the MIA and Migration Alliance to join forces and work together into the future.  I have written to Kevin Lane on a number of occasions over the past year or so requesting that Migration Alliance and the MIA try to work together. I have never received a reply from Mr Lane. 

Your newsletter reads much like a goodbye and farewell mixed in with a desperate attempt to justify motion number 4 on the EGM notice.  I will take the opportunity to say my final goodbye to you if I see you face to face at the MIA EGM on the 18th of February 2015, where I will be present, in person to represent our joint members with their proxies. 

Whilst your board might be unanimous in their decision to want to keep their positions, the members are the ones who vote.  What the Board want for themselves is not necessarily what the Members want for the future of their organisation and their profession. 

Liana Allan

BA, RMA, Founder of MA, Graduate of 'Women and Power: Leadership in a New World' Harvard Kennedy School, 2014, Advocate for Disruptive and Sustaining Innovation.

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NB I am taking proxies for MIA-MA members who would like to appoint me to vote 'NO/AGAINST' the proposed motion on 18 February 2015: APPOINTMENT_OF_PROXY_FORM_20150210-003136_1.pdf

Liana Allan, Level 1, 73 York Street, Sydney NSW 2000