Embrace Australia - Australian Forum for immigration and travel.

New Minister for Immigration??

I heard yesterday from very close to the Minister's office that even if Labor are returned, Evans will move to another portfolio in the new Cabinet. Maybe not immediatelly, but apparantly he wants out!!!

What will that mean? Really, no one knows, so we wait, yet again, and see. It will not stop DIAC from processing cases however.

Cheers

Chris

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Christopher McGrath on September 5, 2010 at 10:45

Hi Gill

(For some reason I cant reply to your last post)

If the Libs get in, then PLEASE NOT Ruddock. He was the Minister for 7 years. Before that when in opposition he was Shadow Minister for many years. He made some awful decisions while Minister, he is a mealy-mouthed little man. Has previously been Attorney General in the last Lib Government. We need new blood, new ideas. As the fat cat Andrew Metcalf will also retire with a hugh pention and super, maybe this is the time for new progressive people with new ideas so that the motto "People our Business" may actuually mean something.

Andrews was the Minister for 11 months, he simply didnt cut it.

Permalink Reply by Susan Wareham McGrath on September 5, 2010 at 11:30

And the other issue is, of course, that Ministers are totally dependent for their political survival and on the advice given by their personal staff and high level agency bureaucrats.

So even after Evans' and Metcalfe's departure, (and if the Coalition wins government, the replacement of Evans' advisors with the new Min's team) there will still be so many of the old guard left in DIAC that it's unlikely the culture will change significantly in any event.

Best regards
Susan

Permalink Reply by Gollywobbler on September 5, 2010 at 14:21

Hi Susan and Chris

I can't reply to either of your last posts today, either. I suspect that the forum's IT Wizard needs to look at the software (after which, he can come and fix my Word template as well, please, because I've mucked it up and I can't work out how to mend it!)

I was told that Andrew Metcalfe is only 52. I was very surprised and remarked that he looks about 62 to me. I was told that that is because of the pressure of his job but that he is actually 2 years younger than me.

I believe that Public Servants in Oz can retire when they are 55 and can claim 100% of their super as a lump sum when they are 55? I presume that they have to stay in harness until they turn 55 at least. I had the impression from Mr Wilden that Metcalfe will probably take another 5 year contract in another Department and then retire after that.

Evans is said to want a new, different, shinier portfolio than Immigration. My fear is that he might want - and might get - the DEEWR. Interfering with the workplace would suit the bloke who used to be a Trade Union hack, I fear. I suspect that that would get his imagination going and grab his attention in the way that Immigration never has, apparently.

I think Susan is right. Changes of Government and Minister - and even a change at the top of the Public Servants in the relevant Department - never gets rid of enough of the Department's Old Guard to cause any real change in the Department's culture.

Whenever I ring David Wilden - which is very rarely - I am usually on the warpath about something but last week, I wasn't. I genuinely wanted to ask him what to do about a Contributory Parent applicant who has cancer. The MOC says that the chap "does not meet" but his Consultant Oncologist says that his stage of the cancer is such that he does meet the criteria set out in the Guidance Notes for the MOC, so it is not clear how to proceed or via whom to proceed. The Oncologist wants more details about why the MOC says "does not meet" and it is not clear how to get that. So I phoned David Wilden asking for some guidance about what the family should do.

I think that Mr Wilden assumed that I would be on the warpath about something, though! Without any prompting from me, he half-admitted that the recent lack of communication from DIAC has been utterly woeful but he says that the reason is cost. Apparently they are limited in the amount of space that they can give to each of the different bits of their website so they try to make all their FAQ etc as short as possible. I was in a good mood and I wanted advice, so I desisted from commenting that just because something is short doesn't mean that it has to be incoherent and incomprehensible as well!

To make the website bigger would involve buying extra memory or something and computer-memory is ferociously expensive to buy for a commercial system, I am told.

Cheers

Gill

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Permalink Reply by filozima on October 2, 2010 at 3:31

I suspect that the forum's IT Wizard needs to look at the software (after which, he can come and fix my Word template as well, please, because I've mucked it up and I can't work out

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Permalink Reply by Gollywobbler on October 2, 2010 at 15:04

Hi Lisa

I eventually "mended" Word but thanks very much indeed for your kind offer!

The symptoms were that it refused to let me set the page numbers when I clicked on "insert" and it refused to let me play with a watermarked background either - via clicking on "format."

Eventually I got so sick of it that I clicked on "Help." Lo and behold! I had been using Word in the web layout instead of print layout or something similar. Whatever was wrong, I corrected the bit at the bottom of Word that lets you see different layouts and the rest of the "problem" then fixed itself!!

I've never claimed to be brainy with these machines - now I know why!!

Cheers

Gill

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Permalink Reply by Gollywobbler on October 2, 2010 at 15:17

Hi Susan and Chris

I have a question, please.

Somebody told me this morning that the Instrument invoking S39 was signed/introduced/confirmed [whatever actually happens with a statutory instrument] on 24th June 2010, which I already knew.

For some reason, this same Instrument was then introduced/produced to both Houses of Parliament on 28th September 2010. The guy didn't give a link to his source and he didn't explain anything about why the Instrument was produced in some way to both Houses of Parliament on the same day.

Why would this have happened, please? Does it mean anything significant or do all legislative Instruments have to be produced to Parliament in this way?

Could it be that giving the Instrument to Parliament in the way that now seems to have happened was a necessary step before the refunds could start to be paid?

I can't say that I've ever really known anything about how public/administrative law works. (Even more so in Oz than in the UK, where the rules and procedures might be different.) As far as I knew, Parliament does not have to get involved with statutory Instruments but I've never been involved in the production of one either, so I really haven't a clue how they work.

I'm just puzzled because I don't know how to find the source material so I can't even guess about whether or not there is anything significant about what happened on 28th September.

Very many thanks

Gill