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What were the results of THAT meeting?


mr luvpants

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Guest GillianM

Hi and hope your having a good holiday...lucky you!! Dont think theres any news yet but did read that there will be another meeting in November with the states. Just so annoying....and i hate the waitinng. Anyway have to go, have a great time x

 

Gillian

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Guest wanderer

No, as Gillian says there was nothing and it was not that type of meeting.

 

I've tried to get the message across that the meeting of parliamentarians in a Senate committee forum is just really something that allows politicians to make out they are doing something, for Government party Senators to either highlight that the government is doing a fine job or for Opposition party Senators to try and score points.

 

It is just a committee hearing with no authoritative power and any changes will always be discussed by the minister with senior department personal and eventually with his cabinet colleagues [the PM and other senior ministers] for any dramatic changes to be considered.

 

I have put the reference to discussion papers on http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/70325-what-would-you-say-minister-immigration-really.html and a read from about post #250 on may give you a picture of what went on.

A decision on the duscusion papers topic is due this month but U would not be surprised if it gets postponed.

 

The November meeting referred to will likewise do nothing and may not even see immigration raised too much.

 

Enjoy your holiday and check www.immi.gov.au every month or so and you'll get hard data on changes, not thoughts and questionable predictions.

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Guest Gollywobbler

Hi John

 

The meeting yesterday was very poorly run by an inexperienced, incompetent Chair.

 

It was clear that none of the Senators had been briefed about the fact that GSM processing timelines have blown out, causing major disruption to the lives of applicants.

 

A Senator called Concetta Fierravanti-Wells would be good on her feet if she were given a decent script to follow. She is tenacious, a Liberal and she has no love for Senator Evans. Senator Russell Trood is good on his feet, too. He is punchy, insists on the right thing being done and as a result of a growling from Senator Trood, the Minister gave Robyn Bicket - DIAC's head of legal - a sharp & public ticking off.

 

Ms Bicket is the sort of lawyer who annoys me. She magines that everyone has loads of time to sit around waitng for ever and that there are no adverse consequences to doing so. She is a text book lawyer who does not live in the real world and real time. For sure, she was involved in advising that the 23rd September Direction is lawful - she is too much of a theoretician to have told the Minister, "But you must consider whether exercising this power in this way will have adverse consequences on our Department's clients - the visa applicants. If you conclude that there will be adverse consequences for them - which there will be - you have to consider whether you can justify your actions. You are the Minister who claims to act according to what is morally right. Is it morally right to promise someone a fast track visa and then tell them afterwards that you were only teasing and tormenting them because you have now changed your mind and you have decided to keep them waiting for at least another 3 years?"

 

This particular Committee meets again in February 2010. I plan to write to the two Senators I have described, showing them the evidence of what has happened - that is all on the Dept's website in the current and previous documents. I also plan to encourage them to read Jamie Smith's thread and Highlander's thread. From those two threads they will soon realise the disruption and bewilderment caused.

 

I think if we can get some of the Senators interested in the problems then we might be able to get something done in terms of putting pressure on the Minister to understand that he cannot treat people in the way that he has been doing ever since 17th December 2009.

 

When you get home - but not until - the Hansard transcript of the meeting is here:

 

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S12494.pdf

 

Ms Bicket got her drubbing about 30 minutes from the end of the session, late at night.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

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