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Thousands of registered migration agents in Australia to lose accreditation

By Murray Hunter - posted Monday, 14 September 2020

Conversely, there is no entry requirement for a lawyer to register and work as a lawyer RMA, providing they hold a legal practising certificate, regardless of their knowledge and skills in migration law and practice.

As of 31^st December 2019, there were 7,249 RMAs of which 5,027 were non-lawyer RMAs and 2,222 lawyer RMAs. According to industry sources, the value of migration advice industry was worth almost AUD 1.0 Billion in 2019, although substantially lower in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and closing of Australian borders.

With the livelihoods of up to 5,000 non-lawyer RMAs at stake, a vast array of industry experience and expertise will be lost to those who require migration assistance. And the more important issue is the recent migration legislation has only perpetuated the shortcomings by creating an uneven field, in favour of certified lawyers, over non-lawyer RMAs who have been the backbone of client advice since the 1980s, which will ultimately impact on all vulnerable immigration customers’ interests.

RMA Voice Inc has made requests to the Department of Home Affairs that the shortcomings in the recommendations within the Kendall Report 2014 should be examined, and corrected to remedy the bias in favour of lawyers over non-lawyer RMAs. It is the view of many within the industry that the implementation of the recommendations will drastically increase the cost of migration and visa advice to clients, and potentially represent a loss of expertise within the industry, as non-migration specialists take up the void that has been serviced very well according to OMARA’s own statistics by non-lawyer RMAs. In addition, the current registration body OMARA will be greatly weakened, as legal practitioners don’t have to register, which will potentially lead to a number of accountability issues within the migration agent profession in the future. This is counterproductive to the Department of Home Affairs vision of creating a world class migration advice industry.