Labor government cracks down on dodgy agents after Nixon review
Immigration agents will have to undertake annual ethics training and regularly refresh their obligations if they want to continue helping people obtain Australian visas.
Labour’s new measures aim to improve integrity in a system where agents have recently been sanctioned for using boilerplate declarations and false information in visa applications and illegally charging applicants for their employers’ sponsorship costs.
Deputy Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs Julian Hill said stronger professional requirements for registered agents would come into force from April. The government will also reduce the number of online training hours agents can complete in a day.
The further tightening of control comes at a time when public concern is growing about immigration levels: the latest Resolve Political Monitor for this imprint showed most Australians thought the numbers were too high and the Albanian government was managing the portfolio in an ad hoc and unmanaged manner.
New migration data will be published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics later this week, but migration levels remain higher overall than before the COVID pandemic, although they have fallen significantly since the post-pandemic peak.
Voters in the Resolve poll were asked what they thought of recent immigration levels, which included around 316,000 net new arrivals and 185,000 permanent places each year. About 58 percent said it was too high; For a similar question in December last year, the rate was 53 percent and in September it was 49 percent.
Those most concerned were One Nation voters (86 per cent) and Coalition voters (70 per cent), but among Labor and Green voters there were more voters who thought immigration was too high than those who thought it was about right or too low.
Most survey respondents (81 percent) who thought the numbers were too high cited housing shortages and affordability as reasons. Nearly two-thirds also said they believed high immigration, as well as pressure on services, could lead to crime, anti-social behavior and poor social cohesion.
But while more than half still believe Labor is running the portfolio in an ad-hoc and unmanaged way, there has been a marginal improvement in people’s assessment of how the government is handling immigration.
Both the Coalition and One Nation are trying to capitalize on this issue; Opposition Leader Angus Taylor assumed the Liberal leadership last month, claiming immigration numbers were too high and standards were too low.
But Taylor is yet to announce Coalition policies, spelling out how he plans to raise standards and counter the clear “zero immigration” stance promoted by Pauline Hanson.
Labor, meanwhile, points out how it has cracked down on dangerous immigration agents and reduced immigration numbers; but Home Secretary Tony Burke refused to give a target figure and instead encouraged the opposition to label which immigrant groups it wanted to cut.
Hill said the new requirements for agents are part of the government’s “overall work to strengthen the integrity of the immigration system and clean up the rot and lax policy environments we inherited.”
Many new measures implemented by the Labor Bill following recommendations of the Nixon review commissioned by former home secretary Clare O’Neil after the 2022 election. The review found that poor management of the immigration system enabled the development of organized crime syndicates engaged in human smuggling and drug trafficking.
Alongside the new requirements for agent training, the government will update the list of training providers offering courses to new agents and increase the number of providers who can assess agents’ English language standards.
These standards are approved by the Office of the Immigration Agents Registration Authority, the government’s regulatory body. Hill said that because of the Nixon review, Labor had tripled the agency’s workforce, allowing it to increase enforcement.
The agency has sanctioned 14 agents this fiscal year and issued 61 penalties since 2021-22.
“While most registered immigration agents act with professionalism and integrity, those who commit crimes will be caught; it’s not a matter of if, but when,” Hill said. “Anyone concerned about agent conduct is encouraged to file a complaint.”
In one example, an agency that had been operating for 20 years was banned for five years for knowingly providing false information on clients’ visa applications and using boilerplate wording that did not reflect each person’s individual circumstances.
In another, an agent who had operated for 13 years was suspended for two years for breaches of conduct identified following a customer complaint: The agent had illegally charged the applicant sponsorship costs for a temporary skills shortage visa, which were to be paid by the employer.
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Natassia Chrysanthos is a Federal Political Correspondent. He has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
