Australian Immigration Daily News

Immigration numbers are too high, straining Sydney and Melbourne’s infrastructure and pushing up house prices beyond the reach of average Australians, former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr recently told The Australian.

“If you jam more people into Sydney, then they will get spikes in land and housing prices. We are stoking demand,’’ he said.

Are the estimated 50,000 foreign settlers a year in NSW responsible for the doubling of house prices in Sydney since about early 2000? The population of NSW is close to 6 million.

The Federal Circuit Court has ruled,in a decision that has importance for RMAs beyond the specific facts of the case, that the MRT erroneously affirmed the Department’s cancellation of a student visa. See Mirdan v Minister for Immigration & Anor, (2015) FCCA (24 April 2015).

The MRT’s decision was based, in part, on its finding that the visa holder was not a “genuine student” because he had not studied in Australia after the time that his student visa was cancelled, during a time period when he held only a bridging visa that contained a “no study condition”. 

The Court’s decision in this case therefore saved the visa holder from a “no-win”, Catch-22” situation where it would have been possible to avoid an adverse finding by the MRT only by contravening the conditions of his bridging visa.

The following email has been received by Migration Alliance:

'Please find attached a letter from Senator the Hon Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services, and the Hon. Philip Ruddock MP, Special Envoy for Citizenship and Community Engagement.

citizenship-consult.pdf

A very intriguing decision by Judge Driver of the Federal Circuit Court, Angkawijaya  & Anor v Minister for Immigration & Anor (2015) FCCA 450 (20 April 2015), provides fresh guidance to Registered Migration Agents and visa applicants concerning the evidence that is necessary to successfully get a Partner Visa application “over the line”. 

Interestingly, the case holds that it is not necessary to demonstrate that the relationship is based on “romantic love”.  

Perhaps it is possible that Judge Driver was listening to Tina Turner’s famous anthem on the radio before writing this decision, and hearing the song again for the umpteenth time confirmed the judge’s view that the answer to the question asked in the lyrics “What’s love got to do with it?” is “not much at all, if anything!” (at least for the purposes of migration law of course!).  So perhaps the judge would agree with Tina that, where the criteria for grant of a Partner Visa are concerned, love is truly nothing more than “a sweet old fashioned notion”!

Dear Members of Migration Alliance,

An AGM has been called for 17 July 2015 at 2pm.

In the intervening period Elections will be held for the positions of: