S M Senanayake: registration cancelled by OMARA on 9 Oct 2017

What the Authority decided

The Authority investigated two complaints made against the Agent and was satisfied that the Agent had breached the following clauses of the Code of Conduct for registered migration agents: 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.8, 2.9, 2.9A, 2.17, 2.19, 2.23, 3.1 and 3.2. In summary, the Authority was satisfied that the Agent had encouraged clients to make, or prepared for them, statutory declarations containing duplicated and inaccurate or misleading claims in support of their Protection visa applications, and witnessed statutory declarations which he knew to be false. In doing so, he exposed his clients to potential adverse visa outcomes and failed to treat them in a manner that was competent, diligent and fair by lodging applications that did not fully reflect the circumstances of the individuals and prejudiced their prospects of success. He disclosed, or allowed to be disclosed, confidential information about clients without their written consent and failed to preserve his clients’ confidentiality. As a result, the Authority found that the Agent was not a person of integrity and not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance. An abridged version of the Authority’s decision can be accessed below. Personal details have been removed in the interests of protecting the privacy of the persons involved.

On 11 October 2017, the agent lodged an appeal of this decision with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. On 4 February 2020 the Administrative Appeals Tribunal affirmed the Authority's decision to cancel the Agent's registration.

The decision summary above is reproduced from the Authority's published record of this decision, which also carries the decision document itself. Nothing has been added to it.

What a cancellation means if this was your agent

The registration is removed. The agent's name comes off the Register of Migration Agents and they may not give immigration assistance. A cancellation is usually accompanied by a period during which the person may not be registered again.

Nobody is acting on your matter right now. Treat this as urgent, and start with who the Department is writing to.

If this was your agent: the first week

1. Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
2. Check who the Department is writing to. A Form 956 makes an agent the authorised recipient, and correspondence sent to them is taken to have been given to you. A deadline sent to an inbox nobody reads is still a deadline.
3. Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
4. Work out what was paid and what was done. Ask for the itemised invoices and receipts the Code requires. Routes to recover money work better started early.
5. Complain, if there is something to complain about. A published decision does not close your own file. Where to complain, and what OMARA can and cannot do.
6. Only then, find someone else. A new agent needs the file and the dates. The first five steps are what make that first conversation useful instead of exploratory.

What this decision does not mean

It is a decision about one individual on one date. Only a person can be a registered migration agent — a company cannot — so it says nothing about anyone else at the same practice. Decisions of this kind are reviewable, and bars and suspensions expire. The register is where the current position lives.

Decision information sourced from the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. VisaBid is not affiliated with OMARA or the Department of Home Affairs.