Legislative Updates

The new regulations amend the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) to "enhance the operation of the Community Support Program (CSP), which allows community groups and individuals to propose and support applicants for entry to Australia under the Humanitarian Program"

The new regulations enable a cohort of secondary applicants for Subclass 309 (Partner (Provisional)) and Subclass 100 (Partner) visas who no longer meet the age requirement for the visa, to be eligible for the grant of the visa

"The instrument specifies the minimum number of points that an applicant for a Subclass 188 (Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional)) visa in the Business...

"The purpose of the instrument is to specify a class of persons for paragraph 1402(3B)(b) of Schedule 1 to the Regulations.  The instrument specifies as a class of persons, persons who were granted Subclass 449 visas due to the ..."

Sch 2: Minister would be authorised to give documents through ImmiAccount; Sch 1: 'when an unlawful non-citizen is in the process of being removed to another country and the removal is aborted... and as a direct result the person is returned to Australia, then that person has a lawful basis to return to Australia without a visa'

'Without limiting the matters to be covered by the review, the review must consider the performance of: (a) immigration lawyers; (b) legal profession complaints handling systems and disciplinary procedures with respect to the activities of immigration lawyers'

'The [Bill] will facilitate the secure, automated and accountable exchange of identity information between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments, pursuant to the objectives of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Identity Matching Services (IGA), agreed by COAG in October 2017. The Bill will achieve this by providing explicit legal authority for the Department of Home Affairs ... to collect, use and disclose identification information'

The instrument specifies the Supporting Innovation in South Australia event for the purposes of visa subclass 408

On 15 Feb 2020, the Labour Party introduced a Bill in the House of Reps that seeks to suspend the requirements under the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) that some visa applicants be in Australia or overseas at the time of decision for applications decided within a certain time period 

"The purpose of this instrument is to list ... as specified areas for the purposes of subclause 600.251(2) of the Migration Regulations"