With the Coalition government on the ropes with its leadership crisis, the ACTU has started flexing its muscle with a ‘scathing response’ to the government’s proposal to introduce the short-term mobility visa and relax 457 visa requirements, according to reports in The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian workers will lose out from a proposed short-term working visa which will serve to benefit big employers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has said in its response to the discussion paper on skilled migration released by the department of immigration (DIBP).

DIBP has been considering relaxing entry requirements for overseas workers, including the introduction of a new short-term visa class for specialised workers to stay in Australia for up to a year.

Under this change, overseas workers would not need to apply for a 457 work visa, which imposes entry requirements including English language tests and forces employers to prove they have looked for local workers before seeking overseas labour.

The ACTU heavily criticised the proposal in DIBP’s paper to introduce a new short-term mobility visa that would allow employers to hire specialised workers for up to 12 months adding that short-term visas would erode working conditions and allow employers to bypass labour market testing (LMT), English language competency and even skills testing, according to The Guardian.

Late in day on 4 February 2015 - witness statement by Alex Tees, Solicitor and ex SVC Legal, uploaded to this website

11:44am on 4 February 2015 - email received from Shafat Hussain claiming fake emails sent to MA under his name (see comments section of this blog)

5:15pm on 3 February 2015 - SVC Legal Australia and Abel Prasad deny allegations and threaten to sue  SVC-to-MA-3-Feb-15.pdf

Various commentaries on the speeches of the new head of Australia’s Immigration department, Michael Pezzullo, suggest that Australia will be looking to tighten immigration policy and possibly make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain permanent residency.

Michael Pezzullo is reported to have encouraged his staff to change the way they think about the department’s role and to question whether the “waves of settlement” in Australia’s past would or should endure, according to a report in The Australian.

In an Australian day speech to his staff he reportedly said, “…we should increasingly reframe our national self-understanding and speak more of ­engaging with the world, and not just settling our land. The vestiges of insularity and living ensconced in our sheltered land, far from our ‘home’, have passed away…

“More than settlement, we should look to become Australia’s gateway to the world, and the world’s gateway to Australia. On occasions, at times of heightened threat such as caused by terrorism or pandemics, we will need to act as the gatekeepers and, as necessary, man the ramparts and protect our borders" said Mr Pezzullo.

Tony Kevin, Emeritus Fellow at Australian National University recently wrote on the website, the conversation.com that the Australian government is in the throes of a major recasting of traditional immigration and border security doctrines and institutions. The changes are being led ‘quietly’ by its new head, Mr Pezzullo who he says has hinted that “Australia is now essentially full.

“The ‘original mission of 1945 to build the population base’ has been accomplished. Now the focus is on short-term in-and-out flows as the national interest demands” observes Mr Kevin.

Mr Kevin says that there are large gaps with Mr. Pezzullo’s doctrines. It is particularly harsh towards asylum seekers who arrive independently at Australia’s maritime borders and adds that, “[Mr Pezzullo] has no words on Australia’s international good citizen role, its responsibility to protect abroad and not contribute to wars that trigger new refugee flows, or our responsibilities to observe international conventions on the law of the sea and maritime search and rescue.

Migration Alliance members who are also MIA members:

Written reports from our sources within the MIA have indicated that at a recent MIA EGM, Angela Chan and the Board of the MIA announced (with motion proposed) to remove the 2 term limitations to Directors tenure.

Further information on this is being sought but due to the difficulty in obtaining real information from the MIA's central control area it might take a little more time.

The DIBP no longer accept Bridging Visa B's electronically.  The following is a message being sent to RMAs:

We are no longer able to accept Bridging Visa applications electronically.

It must be hand delivered to your nearest Immigration office or posted in. Posting it in may take up to 14 days to get to the Perth office for processing so it may be more beneficial to attend your nearest immigration office.