Australian Immigration Daily News

Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance is no doubt one of the most vital forms of cover for Migration Agents. If things don’t quite go to plan it can provide much needed financial assistance for legal and compensation costs in the event of action taken against you in the course of your business.   

Like all insurance policies however, there are several important conditions and obligations under PI policies that Migration Agents need to be aware of to ensure your policy provides the cover you’re expecting, so that you won’t be left high and dry when you come face-to-face with the unexpected.

PI insurance contracts are issued on a ‘claims made and notified’ basis, which means the policy responds to claims first made against the insured during the policy period, and notified to the insurer during the policy period. In short, for a claim to be covered your policy must have been in place at the time the allegation was made against you, and when the claim is lodged.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal released their Migration Caseload Summary for July-May by visa subclass.

For this period there were approximately 16 700 lodgements for an appeal.  The overwhelming bulk of applications are to appeal student visa refusals with approximately 3,800 lodgements.  Second in line are partner visas with approximately 3700 lodgements for appeal followed by sponsorship/nomination refusals sitting at 1750.

There were approximately 4622 appeals lodged for refugee visas with Malaysian nationals making up almost 50% of the caseload.

Hi everyone,

I am writing to extend an invitation to Registered Migration Agents to attend upcoming "Migration Wine and Cheese" events to be held at the offices that I share with VisaCorp (Liana Allan's migration practice) and Migration Alliance, located at Level 3, 276 Pitt Street. 

The events will include a short presentation by me on a current topic (or topics!) on migration law coming out of the Federal courts that will be meaningful for your work, and then an opportunity to share current issues/problems with other RMAs.

What can you do if you have a client who has unexpectedly become unwell shortly before a hearing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal?

What kind of documentation do you need to provide to the Tribunal in support of a request for an adjournment?

Or to put it alternatively, what kind of documentation should you file to preserve your client’s rights if the Tribunal refuses to grant an adjournment, decides the case against your client, and your client wants to take the case to the Federal Circuit Court to argue that the Tribunal’s refusal to grant the adjournment amounted to “jurisdictional error”?

The Migration Amendment (Regulation of Migration Agents) Bill 2017, that was introduced in the House of Representatives on 21 June 2017, includes amended provisions concerning the requirements for registration as a new migration agent.

These amendments are evidently intended to facilitate the recommendations in the Kendall Report that was released on 24 September 2014 concerning educational requirements for migration agents.

The Kendall Report recommended that the previous requirement that “non-lawyer” migration agents entering the profession be required to complete a Graduate Certificate in Migration Law and Practice (a 6-month course) with a new requirement that new applicants for registration be required to complete a Graduate Diploma in Migration Law and Practice (a 12-month course).