George Lombard

Dear HL,

In general you probably should be thinking about coming to Australia on a business ETA rather than a straight visitor ETA as that may give you more flexibility with employment, but I would suggest you take these issues up with an agent before you travel, would be a small and valuable investment I think.

Cheers,

George Lombard

George Lombard

On the unregistered advice issue, there is so much advice offered freely here, and the Department has been so well aware of this and the other 15 or so forums which function in the same way, that you would have to imagine people like tking can continue to provide well meaning support to posters with a sense of impunity. On the other hand a vicious and unprovoked attack on Polly last year which tried to link her to the forum owners, and to suggest she and they had some financial benefit accruing from the advice she gave, still rankles with others who post here. She has always been a voice of reason and commonsense - tking too, come to think of it. On this occation however TK has fallen into error and corrected her reply so no harm done.

IMHO f inaccurate advice is given the best approach is to correct it, and get the moderators to remove it if the advice is dangerous.

Cheers,

George Lombard

hardlife

Thank you Les, please let me know your address to send my cv to you , family i will have to check, i can see this being vey hard.

hardlife

Thanks george,

with a business visa is that still a 6-12 mth process?

Dorothy

I'll answer this one as well. I personally don't see the need to add disclaimers to my signature. I have been a member of this forum for 3 years now and post as a "regular" poster who also happens to be a moderator. Not a moderator who happens to post in the rest of the forum. I too get PMs from people asking me all sorts of questions on migration issues which I refer to agents or this area of the forum.
Les' contact info is in his signature.

rushmere

I think that is very sad, and I'm really sorry to hear that you've been put in this position.

I shudder when I hear a very small minority of migration agents attempting to spread fear (fortunately it doesn't seem to happen very often on here). Quite rightly, there are clear laws on offering migration advice, but offering the benefit of your own experience is very valuable, and any suggestion that only a migration agent can figure out what is true and what is untrue is an insult to many people's intelligence.

Migration is undoubtedly a complex area, and many people will benefit hugely from hiring a good agent. It's great to hear George offering his usual sensible and wise comments on the issue of sharing information. There is a lot of very good information on here and other websites, and most people can work out what's correct or incorrect by reading around and applying a bit of common sense.

This forum is a fantastic resource, and I intend to continue using it, and offering the benefit of my experience where appropriate.

Apologies to the opening poster for being off topic! I'm afraid I don't have any experience that would help you in your particular situation, but good luck in finding a solution.

George Lombard

Dear HL,

No a business ETA only takes a couple of milliseconds to be granted, see www.eta.immi.gov.au. The downside is that it's only for citizens of certain countries and it is only valid for 3 months on any one visit.

cheers,

George Lombard

sj oldfield

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Les Mighalls

IMHO, a tad over the top. It would really be a question of who had 'legal standing' to initiate the legal action. An agent could only commence proceedings if he/she could show loss. The biggest concern would be MARA, who do have standing as the regulatory body. However, as George implied, it would appear that MARA are turning a blind eye to forums such as this.

My biggest concern is the accuracy of advice given to people by parties who do so in an authoritative, almost black and white, manner with only the skimpiest of information from the OP to go by and by doing so possibly mislead people who in turn may spend money unnecessarily, or worse, not proceed, when they could have done so given accurate advice.

IMHO rushmere's comment:

is very much an oversimplification.

If it were as simple as only filling out forms then there would be no need for RMAs at all, nor even accredited migration law specialists. The fact that the various legal regulatory authorities have taken a different view to rushmere in order to protect the public from charlatans would, I would have thought, have given a modicum of credence to the view that negotiating one's way through the complexities of Australian migration law is not that easy.

And finally, to HL, I'll PM you my email address in case you can't find it on our website.

hardlife

george,


would i possible be able to find a company to work for, who might then sponsor me to stay or would i have to come back and start again?

rushmere

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, and I respect your opinion even if I disagree with you! Apologies again to the opening poster for hijacking the thread, but as I was named in the previous post, I feel compelled to reply.

I never suggested that it is always "as simple as only filling out forms". However, a visa application is not always a highly complex issue requiring a legal specialist. If it was, then there would be something very wrong with the whole process. There are very large numbers of relatively straightforward applications successfully lodged by intelligent people who do not need the services of an Australian migration law specialist, and I believe most agents would recognise that fact.

I firmly stand by my original statement: "any suggestion that only a migration agent can figure out what is true and what is untrue is an insult to many people's intelligence". Migration agents play an important role, and are absolutely essential in some cases, but not in all cases, and they certainly do not have exclusive access to knowledge and intelligence.

I suspect we would all agree that applicants should be protected from bad and incorrect advice. This is a public forum where applicants support each other, and as an added bonus, some agents also offer valuable advice. It is inevitable that there will be some inaccurate information posted on any forum, but factual errors do generally get corrected. It would be a real shame if anyone tried to stifle the sharing of information and experience with the claim that it can only be done by "experts".

I'll not comment any more in this thread as I don't want to detract any further from the original question! Sorry folks, I'll climb down from my soapbox now

funksta

i second that..

JAJ

All valid points.

For what it's worth, a lot of the comments on this forum concern areas outside the scope of the Migration Act - including Australian citizenship, state sponsorship and skill assessment. Most of the rest is either generic discussion, sharing of personal experience, linking to the DIAC website or saying "find an agent".

I can't speak for other forums and no forum is perfect but I think it's fair to say that this one is responsibly managed and welcomes the contributions by registered agents (which may or may not lead to additional business for such agents).

As to the quality of the advice given, it obviously varies, but there is no shortage of pointers to the DIAC website, and clarifications/corrections of comments made.

knockoff nige

What about unregistered migration agents? Are they forbidden from posting on here or is it simply about giving out poor advice which could make them legally fragile?

Do we not have freedom of speech? If someone, one here or elsewhere, asks me about my experience of getting my visa, i will feel qualified to talk about it as I got my visa on my own (well, with the help of the many law breakers on here).

pumpkin blossom

I thought there was no such thing as an unregistered migration agent, in Australia at least, as they had to be registered????

Most of the advice on this forum is great, BUT there seem to be a fair few people who think you can get a 457 just because you have someone willing to sponsor you, and tell people to head out to find a sponsor. I have no idea why people think this, and keep advising people to get a 457 visa without knowing what job they do, or if they are qualified.