Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports these bills, which will remove unnecessary restrictions on the migrant advisory industry and set the default charge for the services of agencies to give advice. It is important to stress, in Labor's view, the quality of service to migrants will not be diminished by these changes. People seeking the help of a migration agent are by nature vulnerable consumers and they are often seeking help with application to reunite with family or in the process of seeking a humanitarian visa or they want to take up a job in Australia or visit for an extended period of time. We are supporting these bills because, after a Senate inquiry and amendments were introduced into the House, the protection for vulnerable migrants will be retained. However, I note that this has taken a very long time to reach this point.

The bill arises from the recommendations of the independent review of the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority by Dr Christopher Kendall. The review, known as the OMARA review, was commissioned by the Abbott government in June 2014. Dr Kendall submitted his report in September 2014 yet the legislation was not introduced to the House of Representatives until July 2017, and here we are debating this matter in December 2018. Because of the government's poor record of drafting migration legislation, Labor referred the migration bill to the Senate inquiry as standard practice, and an inquiry was especially necessary in this case because the legislation did not appear until three years after the review that had given rise to it and it was important to consider whether changed circumstances would affect the OMARA recommendations. Unfortunately, the Turnbull government accepted the inquiry's recommendations to include the bill's transitional arrangement for migration agents who became legal practitioners. But we note—and not for the first time with regard to migration bills—that if the government had consulted stakeholders appropriately, in the first place, it could have got the legislation right the first time.

The bill is to implement the OMARA recommendations that lawyers who hold practising certificates shall be removed from the regulatory regime that governs migration agents. As the Law Council stated in its submission to the Senate inquiry:

The Australian legal profession is comprehensively regulated under robust State and Territory legal profession regulatory laws and arrangements, which include comprehensive complaint handling and disciplinary measures, and consumer protections more extensive than those available under the Migration Act.

And this was supported by submissions by the Refugee Council, which urged that these bills be passed. The council stated:

Lawyers are already required to maintain registration and uphold their ethical duties under their own state based legal professional regulatory framework.

The Refugee Council of Australia believes:

… this system is sufficient to ensure lawyers provide sound advice to adhere to their ethical obligations.

Ending a dual registration requirement for lawyers brings Australia into line with other comparable countries—that is, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand—which all have registration requirements for migration agents but do not require lawyers to be registered in order to provide migration advice. Under this bill, the existing 12-month limit for someone to apply for registration after completing a prescribed course is removed. This complements changes to replace the current graduate certificate with a Graduate Diploma in Australian Migration Law and Practice and the development of a Capstone exam.

The bill also gives the migration agents regulatory authority the power to refuse an application to become a registered migration agent where the applicant has been required to, but has failed to, provide information or answer questions about their application. The bill requires migration agents who have been registered on a non-commercial basis to notify the authority if they have undergone a change in circumstances and seek to provide migration assistance on a commercial basis. These changes complement amendments made by the complementary bill—the Migration Agents Registration Application Charge Amendment (Rates of Charge) Bill 2017—and makes the higher commercial charge the default charge. Together, these changes make the migration advice industry less complex and more client friendly. Labor therefore is pleased to support the bill in the form now before the Senate.