Significant Investor visa opens to business migrants

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen MP, today launched a new visa designed to encourage significant migration investment into Australia.

'From tomorrow, 24 November, business migrants with $5 million or more to invest in our economy can apply for a provisional significant investor visa, a new stream within the Business Innovation and Investment program,' Mr Bowen said.

'The Significant Investor visa is an important new tool in the armoury of Australia's financial services sector as Australia looks to compete in our region for high wealth and high skilled migrants and the capital that comes with them.'

The new visa makes it easier for migrant investors by offering concessions on visa requirements, such as a not having to meet a points test and no age restriction.

It has a low residence requirement of 160 days spent here over four years, after which migrant investors are eligible for permanent residence provided they have maintained their investment.

Investment options include Commonwealth, state and territory government bonds, Australian Securities and Investments Commission regulated managed funds and direct investment into proprietary Australian companies.

Significant Investors can also extend their four-year provisional visa by two years, with a maximum of two extensions.

'Since I announced the new Significant Investor visa in May, there has been substantial interest from potential migrant investors and the financial services sector so I expect many people to apply,' Mr Bowen said.

consistent with visas in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, which provide for migration services on the basis of investment of a specified size and conditions.

Significant investor visa details are on the Department of Immigration and Citizenship website.

Source  http://www.investinaustralia.com/news/significant-investor-visa-opens-business-migrants-12c3

More than 350 African migrants intercepted off Italy

Italian coastguards said they had intercepted and picked up 358 African migrants attempting to reach Italy in two overcrowded vessels on Saturday.

Two hundred and thirty-five of the migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were travelling in a rickety wooden boat and the other 123 were spotted on a rubber dinghy, said the coastguards.

A coastguard spokesman, who was unable to give any information on where the vessels departed from, said the migrants were all in decent health and were being transported to reception centres.

Italy has borne the brunt of clandestine seaborne migration to southern Europe that has ebbed and flowed for several years. Migrants say they are attracted by the prospect of a better life in Europe.

Most migrants risk the voyage across the Mediterranean Sea in small and overcrowded fishing boats. Thousands have died as a result of shipwreck, harsh conditions at sea or a lack of food and water.

Source  http://news.yahoo.com/more-350-african-migrants-intercepted-off-italy-083153555.html

Migration fraudster duped students' parents

The head of a major migration scam not only deceived the Australian government but fooled the parents of international students that their children had graduated with high scores from Melbourne’s best universities.

Investigators estimate fake migration agent Qi Zhou’s fraudulent scheme generated more than $12 million in fees from mostly Chinese students.

Zhou’s Collins Street business targeted students who sought migration assistance and also arranged sham marriages to obtain Australian residency.

Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday heard staff at Hong Yun International (HYI) provided a range of false documents and services to support clients’ visa applications.

These included false and fraudulently altered documents from institutions that included Melbourne, Monash and Deakin, RMIT and Swinburne universities.

The court heard many students had failed to obtain suitably high scores or had dropped out of their course through poor attendance or unsatisfactory academic results.

Zhou’s staff provided forged documents that showed students not only still attending courses, but graduating with high scores by the provision of graduation certificates, results statements and letters of completion.

Some students were also able to obtain positions within post-graduate degrees when not qualified to do so.
Zhou, 46, yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiring to dishonestly influence a public official and nine charges of importing false templates between January, 2006, and December, 2008.

More than 200 charges were withdrawn. One defendant has been sentenced while two suspects — Jian (William) Zhang, 39, and Yan Bin Hu, 32, — left Australia in 2009 and have not returned.

Magistrate Peter Reardon heard a joint Australian Federal Police and Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC)  investigation identified Zhou as the business’ primary owner, manager and director.

Staff guaranteed clients immigration visas, offered ‘‘finders’’’ fees and provided fake enrolments to satisfy a government requirement for study visas.

Students also obtained false work references, work histories and pay records from companies owned by Zhou.

These activities were conducted with or without the  clients’ knowledge.

The prosecution case is that the offenders acted fraudulently against the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA), the General Skilled Migration program (GSM) and the Trades Recognition Australia office (TRA).

According to a prosecution summary, clients ‘‘paired up’’ by Zhou for sham marriages were told to share address information and create contrived ‘‘relationship-supporting’’ photos and witness declarations.

The false details and material would then be submitted to DIAC by staff for the purpose of obtaining visas.
When the business was raided in 2009, police found more than 250 client files.

The AFP estimated that in the offending period the HYI’s fraudulent activity generated a total of more than $12.3 million.

Many of the fraudulent applications submitted to DIAC were either successful in obtaining residency, refused or withdrawn.

The summary said Zhou, to try to conceal the creation and storage of false documents, arranged for a separate office specifically for this purpose.

Twice he established new offices — after emptying and closing those raided by investigators.

The court heard Zhou had used a company that owned a number of restaurants, including Chinatown Dumpling restaurant, Sichuan Dining Room and Lucky’s Dining Room, to receive the money from HYI’s offending.

Zhou, of Kingsbury, was bailed to appear in the County Court next year.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/migration-fraudster-duped-students-parents-20121108-290wf.html#ixzz2Bz9h1Ubp

Locals paid $4 an hour at Nauruan detention centre

NAURUANS recruited to work at Australia's reopened detention centre in the Pacific are being paid as little as $4 an hour, up to 10 times less than the Australian citizens working alongside them in kitchens, as guards, cleaners and as maintenance and office workers. 

 

Last month, Julia Gillard was critical of billionaire Gina Rinehart's suggestion Australians must compete with Africans prepared to work for $2 a day, saying it was "not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and them ask them to work for a day".

But it has emerged that some residents of Nauru, the republic where more than 25 per cent of the population were assessed as living below the poverty line in 2006, are not happy that their people are being paid at a different rate to Australians by a contractor engaged by the Gillard government.

Resident Clint Deidenang acknowledges that $4 an hour is not a low wage in Nauru, but says the pay rates for the estimated 70 indigenous Nauruans employed by Transfield Services are much less than they first thought they would receive when they were recruited by the logistics and maintenance company. Mr Deidenang said there were high hopes and much excitement last month when Transfield representatives came to the Nauru Aussie Rules grand final to hand out flyers about work opportunities at the new detention centre.

"People quit their jobs to work for the detention centre because they thought it would be a lot of money for their family," Mr Deidenang said. "It turned out to be not very different and much less than the Australians get."

The Australian has been told the locals' rates of pay range from between $4 and $10 an hour.

By comparison, Australian detention centre workers employed by subcontractor Wilson Security for Transfield Services on Nauru are believed to earn about $40 an hour including allowances. Detention centre workers employed at the Christmas Island immigration detention centre by subcontractor MSS are paid $38 an hour including meal allowances.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship yesterday defended Transfield Services, which told The Australian it was unable to comment under the terms of its agreement with the government.

"Transfield, as with all service providers, is required to ensure its staff are paid in accordance with relevant regulations, awards and conditions," a departmental spokesman said. "It's not appropriate for the department to go into detail about individual salaries or the pay and conditions except to say that the department is satisfied that Transfield is meeting its contractual obligations in relation to all of its staff."

Mr Deidenang, who works for a Nauruan construction company, said his people were paid more when the detention centre was run by the International Organisation for Migration during the Howard government. "My twin cousins were both working for them as lifeguards earning a monthly pay of $1600," he said. "Nauruans will never ever forget that glorious day."

Yesterday a spokesman for the IOM said: "We feel we paid appropriate market rates after consultation with the government and our own research."

A spokesman for the Nauruan government, Rod Henshaw, believed different rates of pay applied when the detention centre was open under the Howard government but the $4 an hour some were now earning was equivalent to what a senior public servant earned in Nauru.

There were other benefits from negotiations with Transfield, Mr Henshaw said.

"One of the conditions was that where possible (and appropriate) support service organisations would employ staff from local communities and purchase goods and other services locally where possible. The rationale behind this was based on the experience last time when huge amounts of food and other products were flown in. But against that, it must be said there was very little of that in supply on Nauru in 2001 and the imports were necessary. These days the economic climate is vastly improved and therefore Nauruan private enterprises have grown accordingly."

Source  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/locals-paid-4-an-hour-at-nauruan-detention-centre/story-fn9hm1gu-1226505683189