The Sydney Morning Herald, August 30, 2007

A DETAINEE has escaped from Sydney’s Villawood immigration detention centre, police say.

Immigration authorities and NSW police are searching for the man, a police spokesman said.

The detainee, Ricardo Fisher, scaled the fence of the detention centre and escaped about 2.45am this morning, Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Jamal Daoud said.

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Labor says it has no plans to allow unskilled Pacific island guest workers into Australia to ease labour shortages, if it wins the upcoming election.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews accused the opposition of inviting a ‘flood’ of boat arrivals from the Pacific, after reports a Labor government would consider allowing in guest workers to perform unskilled seasonal jobs.

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A Melbourne official with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has been charged with receiving a bribe.

Ijaz Ahmad Aziz, 44, of Clayton, was arrested and appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.

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Easier visa requirements and improved access to government markets top the wish lists of Indian technology companies as Australia and India consider a free trade agreement.

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August 28, 2007

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd says he is disgusted at reports foreign workers have died because of employer abuse of the 457 temporary visa scheme.

A Fairfax investigation today revealed three foreign workers on 457 visas died in separate incidents in the Northern Territory, Queensland and north of Perth.

Concerns have been raised that rogue employers are rorting the visa scheme by underpaying foreign workers, ignoring safety standards and employing foreigners in unskilled jobs for which the visa was not intended - putting employees at risk.

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A NSW Senate candidate has compared the immigration of Muslims to Australia to the bird flu and says it should stop.Christian Democratic Party (CDP) Senate candidate Paul Green called today for a moratorium on Muslim immigration while a study on its social impacts was carried out.

He said it would be easier to carry out such a study with the country’s Muslim population at 300,000, rather than three million at a later date.

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llegal SA workers to be deported

The federal Immigration Minister says 39 illegal workers found in South Australia’s Riverland and Adelaide will be returned to their home countries.

Kevin Andrews says the unlawful non-citizens were found during a three-week investigation, prompted by a community tip-off.

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About 30 000 people from Australia’s Turkish community are this month celebrating the contributions made during 40 years of official Turkish migration to Australia.Assistant Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Teresa Gambaro said today that Australia and Turkey had signed a bilateral agreement on assisted migration in October 1967.

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Foreign architects, locksmiths and aircraft engineers will find it easier to get work in Australia under changes to the country’s skilled migration program.

Migrants with skills in occupations considered to be in demand, such as those with labour shortages, have a better chance of being accepted by the immigration department for skilled work in Australia.

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Citizenship test passes first step
The Age (Melbourne), August 8, 2007

Federal parliament’s lower house has approved plans to introduce a citizenship test, despite a Liberal backbencher splitting from his party over the move.

Greek-born Victorian MP Petro Georgiou, who has previously spoken out against the government over the test and other immigration issues, said he would not support the bill.

Mr Georgiou said the government’s proposal turned its back on Australia’s tradition of inclusive citizenship.

‘I believe it imposes a punitive test,’ Mr Georgiou told parliament.

‘I do not support the citizenship testing bill.

‘I do not support it because there has been an utter failure to show that a new citizenship test is needed or it will operate fairly.’

Mr Georgiou said his father - who came to Australia from Greece after the war, raised and educated his family and worked two jobs most of his life - was emblematic of the problems with the test.

‘He was like hundreds of thousands of post war immigrants. He and they earnestly tried to learn English, but despite their best efforts they could not achieve a standard of English that would have enabled them to pass the test this parliament is about to endorse,’ he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians who spoke English as a first language would fail the test, he said, because many had poor literacy and knowledge of history and civics.

The test would stop many migrants committed to Australia from becoming citizens and therefore full members of the community, and ‘diminish us as a nation’.

But Mr Georgiou was not given a chance to cross the floor over the bill as it passed without a division being called, as Labor supports the plan.

The government earlier moved to gag debate on the bill at 1pm and rush it through the House of Representatives, despite Labor’s objections.

‘This government is holding this parliament in contempt,’ opposition trade and regional development spokesman Simon Crean said.

‘It is abusing every process known to reasonable decision making.’

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said material that would form the basis of the 20-question computer-based test would highlight Australia’s common values, history, heritage, symbols, institutions and laws.

‘It will give migrants to Australia information they need to better understand what it means to be Australian, their rights as Australian citizens and what is expected of them in return,’ he said.

Although Labor supported the bill many MPs, including backbencher Brendan O’Connor, said it was difficult to judge the measure when the government had not even drafted the book on which the test questions will be based.

Several Labor amendments, including one that would make sure migrants receive enough free English training to pass the test, failed along party lines.