Australian Immigration Daily News

THESE COMMENTS ARE MADE BY ME IN MY CAPACITY AS THE CONVENOR OF MIGRATION ALLIANCE

The Chief Operating Officer of the MIA has made a complaint to the NSW Trade and Investment about information appearing on the MA website.

Here is his dob:

Significant Investor Visa applicants seeking sponsorship from New South Wales are required to invest $1.5m of their Complying Investments in NSW Waratah Bonds.

NSW Waratah Bonds are issued by NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp), the New South Wales Government’s central borrowing agency.

The New South Wales Government guarantees the payment of interest and the repayment of principal on NSW Waratah Bonds.

Recently the Office of the MARA sent out tax invoices / receipts to agents and CPD provdiers via email.

Quite a few agents thought these emails were phishing or fake emails.  I have written to the OMARA and they have confirmed that the emails are genuine:

Thank you for your email regarding recent emails from the Authority.

The announcement by the Hon. Senator Michaelia Cash that there will be an independent review of the OMARA is timely given the five year gestation period on the campaign being run by Migration Alliance through the persistent lobbying efforts of Liana Allan.

It is great to have a government in place that is actually interested in engaging with members of the public, this profession and which hears and responds to stakeholder concerns.  My experience of the former government was that they weren't interested, and any suggestions were sent to DIBP to be smothered at birth.

As far as I'm concerned, the timing could not be better as I laboured my way through the simplified online registration process on the OMARA web-portal.

Migration Alliance is in receipt of the following information.  We are pleased about this review.

Migration agents’ regulator to be reviewed

The Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) as an industry regulator will be the subject of an independent review, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash said today.