5 points for investment (pre 1 September applicants) withdrawn 30 November 2007

[Guest Birdiesinoz]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but DIAC have advised that from Friday 30 November, no State or Territory Government is actively participating in arrangements that allow allocation of 5 bonus points to General Skilled Migration applicants to deposit $100,000 in a nominated investment for term of at least 12 months.

 

This basically means those applicants who were banking on the 5 bonus points will have nowhere to invest the funds. They have alo announced that they have no intention of offering any alternative.

 

Applicants who have been waiting for the request for the investment will not get the bonus points because, although having applied under an expectation that they would be able to deposit funds, they will not now be able to find a State/Territory Government prepared to continue to participate in the investment arrangements regardless of when they lodged their visa application, these people will now “miss out” on the opportunity to get the 5 bonus points.

 

:arghh:

[Alan Collett]

See also:

Go Matilda - Your Gateway to Australia - News

 

Best regards.

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hello Birdies and Alan

 

I am absolutely shocked by this latest news. The Pathway D fiasco was quite bad enough, I would have thought, without this new game on top?

 

So - the Court gave DIAC a round telling-off for turning a blind eye whilst a couple of con-artists swindled the NAB out of a few million bucks. DIAC appear to me to have retaliated by punishing all the innocent non-swindlers for somebody else's crime. The details about individual State Treasuries etc are a red herring as far as I am concerned. DIAC is the internationally visible public interface between Australia's skills shortage and all the many thousands of entirely innocent people who are willing to put up with the place in order to solve Australia's shortages.

 

The ONLY respectable and reputable way out of this is for DIAC to put every single applicant caught up in this mess back into the same financial position that they would have been in if they had never heard of Australia to start with, I strongly suggest, and to do that without quibbling and pronto.

 

Meanwhile it seems to me that they have also contrived to discredit the Migration Agency profession in its entirety at the same time. It is now clear that an Agent can take your money for proferring advice in the utmost good faith and sincerity on 1st Dec. He will, of course, take the whole of his own fees up front before he sends your visa application anywhere near DIAC. However, 10 minutes after he has done that, DIAC pull the rug from under his feet and yours without a whisper of advance warning to either of you.

 

Why waste the money on an Agent? This visa thing has become such a complete game of chance in recent months that one might as well minimise the financial risk by doing the dice-rolling oneself, it seems to me.

 

Frankly, I think that DIAC have put the MIA into a completely untenable position. Which client is now going to believe that RMAs can hear Jungle Drums and protect their clients from the message in those drums?

 

I expect to see a firm like Parish Patience spearheading a Class action against the Minister about this latest twist. I hope that will happen, anyway, because natural justice is now crying out for an airing, in my view.

 

Gill :realmad::policeman: