Mumthaj Kantara: registration cancelled by OMARA on 16 Jan 2017

What the Authority decided

On 16 January 2017, the Authority decided to cancel the Agent's registration as a migration agent.

The decision was made following the Authority's investigation into four complaints in relation the Agent's conduct. In summary, the Authority was satisfied that the Agent had:

• Failed to act in the legitimate interests of her clients;
• Engaged in behaviour that demonstrated very limited regard to the clients’ dependence on the Agent;
• Failed to demonstrate a sound working knowledge of migration legislation and be frank and candid about prospects of success;
• Failed to act in accordance with instructions, keep clients fully informed and advise clients in writing of the outcome of their applications;
• Failed to manage client money appropriately;
• Failed to provide responses to the Authority’s requests for information, despite being given a number of opportunities to do so, and;
• Made misleading and inaccurate statements in support of an application made to the Department.

The Authority also found that the Agent had breached clauses 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 2.9, 5.2, 5.5, 7.2 and 9.3 of the Code of Conduct and that she was not a person of integrity or was otherwise not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance. Taking into account the serious impact that the Agent's conduct had on her clients, and in the interests of consumer protection, the Authority considered that a cancellation decision was appropriate in the circumstances. An abridged version of the decision can be accessed below. Personal details have been removed in the interests of protecting the privacy of the persons involved.

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.