Australian Immigration Daily News

COVID 19 has disrupted the world and upended markets, communities and business strategies, prompting the Australian Government to launch a powerful blueprint for economic growth – with the JobMaker Plan a key tool to help turbocharge our economy. 

As part of this effort to generate thousands of quality jobs for Australians, the Prime Minister set up the Global Business and Talent Attraction Taskforce. He’s described our mission as “Australia’s  brain gain”. 

The Taskforce is a cross agency government initiative to bring the best and brightest businesses and talent to Australia. We are targeting high yield companies that can bring new technologies, cutting edge research and development as well as IP and capital to our shores. 

The Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) Regulations 2021 (the Regulations) amend the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Migration Regulations) to allow the Minister to specify that certain bridging visas are subject to specified visa conditions.

In particular, the Regulations allow the Minister to impose a number of existing visa conditions, relating to the safety and security of the Australian community, on Subclass 050 (Bridging (General)) visas and Subclass 070 (Bridging (Removal Pending)) visas.

The conditions may be imposed if the visa is granted by the Minister exercising his or her personal power under section 195A of the Migration Act to grant a visa to a detainee.

Christopher Levingston, Secretary of Migration Alliance, and Accredited Specialist Immigration Lawyer is offering free mentoring to Registered Migration Agents and Migration Lawyers.

This free services is only available to Registered Migration Agents and Migration Lawyers and is not available to members of the public.

If you have a tricky immigration question, or need assistance formulating a strategy for a client then you can contact Christopher by email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Outline

The Migration Amendment (Clarifying International Obligations for Removal) Bill 2021 (the Bill) amends the Migration Act 1958 (the Migration Act) to:

- modify the effect of section 197C to ensure it does not require or authorise the removal of an unlawful non-citizen (UNC) who has been found to engage protection obligations through the protection visa process unless:

- the decision finding that the non-citizen engages protection obligations has been set aside;

- the Minister is satisfied that the non-citizen no longer engages protection obligations; or

- the non-citizen requests voluntary removal; and

- ensure that, in assessing a protection visa application, protection obligations are always assessed, including in circumstances where the applicant is ineligible for visa grant due to criminal conduct or risks to security.

Section 197C of the Migration Act provides that, for the purposes of section 198 (removal from Australia of unlawful non-citizens), it is irrelevant whether Australia has nonrefoulement obligations in respect of a UNC, and that person must be removed as soon as reasonably practicable.

Section 197C was introduced to deter the making of unmeritorious protection claims as a means to delay an applicant¡¦s departure from Australia. In these cases, the Minister or delegate had already found the person did not engage non-refoulement obligations. Section 197C was therefore not intended to operate to require the removal of a person who had been found to engage non-refoulement obligations.

 Source: Migration-Amendment---Clarifying-Bill-2021.pdf and 

Migration-Amendment---Clarifying-Bill-2021-explanatory-memo.pdf