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Migration agents will have to undertake yearly ethics training and regular refreshers on their obligations if they want to keep helping people obtain Australian visas.
Labor’s new measures aim to improve integrity in a system where agents have recently been sanctioned for using template statements and false information in visa applications, and unlawfully charging applicants for their employers’ sponsorship costs.
Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs Julian Hill said the stronger professional requirements would come into effect for registered agents from April. The government will also reduce the number of online training hours that agents can complete in one day.
The stricter oversight comes amid public concern about immigration levels: the latest Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead, showed most Australians thought numbers were too high, and that the Albanese government was managing the portfolio in an unplanned and unmanaged way.
Fresh migration data will be published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics later this week, but immigration levels generally remain higher than they were before the COVID pandemic, even though they have come down significantly since their post-pandemic peak.
Voters in the Resolve survey were asked what they thought about the latest migration levels of about 316,000 net new arrivals each year, and 185,000 permanent places. About 58 per cent said that was too high – up from 53 per cent for a similar question in December last year and 49 per cent in September.
Those most likely to be concerned were One Nation voters (86 per cent) and Coalition voters (70 per cent), although among Labor and Greens voters there were still more people who thought immigration was too high than those who thought it was about right or too low.
Among those polled who thought numbers were too high, most (81 per cent) named housing shortages and affordability as the reason why. About two-thirds also pointed to pressure on services as well as their belief that high migration can lead to crime, anti-social behaviour and poor social cohesion.
But there has been a marginal improvement in how people regarded the government’s handling of immigration, even if more than half still believe Labor is managing the portfolio in an unplanned and unmanaged way.
Both the Coalition and One Nation are seeking to capitalise on the issue; Opposition Leader Angus Taylor took the Liberal leadership last month, claiming that migrant numbers have been too high and standards too low.
However, Taylor is yet to reveal Coalition policies that explain how he intends to raise standards and counter the blunt “zero migration” stance being promoted by Pauline Hanson.
Labor, meanwhile, points to how it has been cracking down on dodgy migration agents and lowering migration numbers – although Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has declined to provide a target figure, instead goading the opposition to label which groups of migrants it wants to cut.
Hill said the new requirements for agents was part of the government’s “overall work to strengthen the integrity of the migration system and clean up the rorts and loose policy settings that we inherited”.
Several new measures implemented by Labor act on the recommendations of the Nixon review, which former home affairs minister Clare O’Neil commissioned after the 2022 election. The review found poor management of the migration system had allowed organised crime syndicates involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling to flourish.
On top of the new requirements for agent training, the government will update its list of education providers that deliver courses to new agents and boost the number of providers who can assess agents’ English language standards.
These standards are upheld by the Office of Migration Agents Registration Authority – the government regulator. Hill said that Labor had tripled the agency’s workforce because of the Nixon review, enabling it to ramp up enforcement.
The agency has sanctioned 14 agents this financial year and issued 61 penalties since 2021-22.
“While most registered migration agents act with professionalism and integrity, those who engage in wrongdoing will be caught – it’s not a matter of if, but when,” Hill said. “Anyone concerned about agent behaviour is encouraged to raise a complaint.”
In one example, an agent operating for 20 years received a five-year ban because they had knowingly supplied false information in clients’ visa applications, and used template statements that didn’t reflect each person’s individual circumstances.
In another, an agent operating for 13 years received a two-year suspension for breaches of conduct detected after a client complaint: the agent had passed sponsorship costs for a temporary skills shortage visa onto an applicant unlawfully, when they should be paid by the employer.
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