Barry Pike: registration suspended by OMARA on 10 Dec 2024
Registration suspended for a period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance.
The decision stated a period of for a period of 2 year from 10 Dec 2024, which on its face runs until 10 Dec 2026. Decisions can be reviewed and varied, so confirm the current position on the register.
Reported from the OMARA disciplinary decisions register, read on 11 Sep 2026. The register is the authoritative source and it changes: decisions are reviewable, and suspensions and bars expire. Check it before you act on anything here.
What the Authority decided
On 10 December 2024, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to suspend Agent, Mr Barry Frederick Pike (MARN 1280137) from being registered as a migration agent for a period of 2 years and until certain conditions are met, following an investigation into one complaint in relation to the Agent’s conduct.
The Authority found that the Agent breached his obligations under clauses 2.1, 2.4, 2.8(c), 2.8(d) of the former Code and sections 39 and 40 of the Code of Conduct for Registered Migration Agents.
The Authority found that the Agent:
Failed to provide updates to his clients and maintain open lines of communication with them in regard to their immigration matters, as would be expected of an RMA.
Failed to address systematic business practices which have led to further poor business practices and breaches against both the former and current Code.
Caused unnecessary expense or delay to his clients by not notifying them of requests and outcomes within a timely manner or in line with the Department of Home Affairs’ timeframes.
The Authority was also satisfied that the Agent and was not a person of integrity, or otherwise not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance.
A redacted copy of the decision is available below.
Note: At paragraph 7 on page 2 of the decision it stated that the Agent's most recent registration commenced on 26 August 2024. That is incorrect. The Agent applied to renew his registration on 28 June 2024. At the time of the suspension of the Agent's registration no decision had been made on the registration application.
On 12 December 2024 the Agent applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal for review of the decision to suspend his 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 suspension means if this was your agent
The registration is suspended for a set period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance — not to you, not to anyone. Section 280 of the Migration Act makes paid immigration assistance by an unregistered person a criminal offence, and a suspended agent is unregistered for the duration.
This is the outcome that most often catches people mid-matter, because the agent is still there and the suspension has an end date. If your matter can wait, it may be able to wait. If you have a response deadline from the Department inside the suspension period, it cannot.
If this was your agent: the first week
- Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
- 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.
- Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
If you are named here and something does not match the published decision — including where a decision has since been set aside, varied, or has expired — tell us and we will correct or remove it. We report what the register says; when the register changes, this should change with it.
This page reports a regulator's decision and explains in general terms what that kind of decision means. It is not immigration assistance and not legal advice, and it cannot take your circumstances into account. Only a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner may advise you on your own application.
Finding someone else
Post what you need and registered migration agents and Australian legal practitioners quote you for it in writing — a fixed fee, or an hourly rate with an hours estimate, GST included, with government charges itemised separately so a cheap-looking quote cannot quietly leave one out. Applicants pay nothing. Every quote carries the individual's MARN or practising certificate details, so you can run the same check that brought you here.
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