Australian Immigration Daily News

Is the saying "you get what you pay for" true when it comes to the quality of CPD for RMAs?

In other words, is there a correlation between what you pay for a CPD course, and how good the content of the course is?

At the recent hearing of the Australian Parliament's  Joint Standing Committee on Migration concerning the current regulation of migration agents, testimony was given by a representative of the Migration Institute of Australia (Bronwyn Markey) raising concerns about a "race to the bottom" on the pricing of CPD costs that is said to have occurred since the OMARA removed its requirement to review and approve course content and replaced it only with a requirement that the CPD provider be approved (in other words, once approved, a CPD provider can prepare CPD course contents without any oversight or review by the OMARA).

JOINT COMMITTEE HANSARD: Joint Standing Committee On Migration - Review processes associated with visa cancellations made on criminal grounds - Sydney

JSCM---review-processes-associated-with-visa-cancellations-made-on-criminal-grounds.pdf

Suppose you have a client who does not satisfy the character test because she/he has a substantial criminal record.

Suppose also that it has been determined by the Tribunal that the client is owed non-refoulement obligations on complementary protection grounds.

In these circumstances, if the Minister exercises powers under section 501A(2) of the Migration Act to set aside the decision of the Tribunal and refuses to grant a protection visa, is there any legal theory available to challenge the Minister’s actions?

Migration Alliance has received the following information from the AAT.  We have permission to publish:

Last year the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) developed six information videos to help people become familiar with our role and important aspects of our processes.

The videos include:

I recently gave some evidence before the Joint Standing committee about CPD.

https://migrationalliance.com.au/immigration-daily-news/entry/2018-07-transcript-from-public-hearing-on-efficacy-of-current-regulation-of-australian-migration-agents.html 

I think that CPD serves a number of important functions which include the following: