As anticipated by Migration Law Updates on 18 April 2019, the Deregulation Bill has now officially lapsed, immediately before the commencement of the new Parliament. It will be up to the new Parliament whether to reintroduce it.
The OMARA’s website has just been updated to reflect the lapsing of the Migration Amendment (Regulation of Migration Agents) Bill 2018 as follows:
Removal of lawyers
On 11 April 2019, the 45th Australian Parliament ended with the announcement of the general election. As a result, all business on the Notice Papers before the House of Representatives and Senate lapsed.
The Bill to remove certain Australian Legal Practitioners from the OMARA regulatory scheme was one such matter and will therefore require reintroduction to Parliament in order to be passed. In the meantime, Australian Legal Practitioners must continue to register with the OMARA in order to provide immigration assistance.
As reported by us on the above date and according to correspondence the writer has received from Parliament, ‘[i]t is [now] a matter for the government to decide if a lapsed bill will be reintroduced in the new Parliament’.
Disclaimer: the above is a mere extract. The views there expressed might not reflect the views of the Department, the AAT or the courts. The law or policies might have changed between the writing and reading of this article. The author of this article and Migration Law Updates disclaim any liability for any action (or omission) on their part based on any information provided (or not provided) in this article and are under no obligation to keep the general public nor practitioners informed about the matters discussed in this article or any other matters, or any future changes to any of those matters. It is the responsibility of each practitioner to obtain access to primary sources of law and policy by themselves and to carry out their own research and come to their own conclusions on legislation, case law, policies and more. This article is not intended for the general public.
Sergio Zanotti Stagliorio is a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1461003). He is the owner of Target Migration in Sydney. He can be reached at sergio@targetmigration.com.au