Dual citizenship for expat Sri Lankans hangs in the balance

Sri Lanka’s Department of Immigration & Emigration (DIE) and the office of the Legal Draftsman are at loggerheads over the new amendments to the Dual Citizenship Act.

'Ceylon Today' reported that the two departments are forwarding papers to and fro, between their offices, while having a disagreement as to how the new amendments could be accommodated.

In an interesting twist to the year-long drawn out amendment, it is learnt that the two departments have also lost track as to where the documents are at present.

While the Controller, DIE, Chulananda Perera, said the draft amendment to the Dual Citizenship Act is still with the Legal Draftsman and they are awaiting his observations, the Legal Draftsman, GAS de Silva, said he had sent the observations to the DIE.

Dual Citizenship for Sri Lankans living overseas was suspended on January 28, 2011. While many applicants are anxiously waiting to obtain dual citizenship, the DIE is waiting for the new amendments to the Act so as to proceed with processing the applications.

According to the DIE, the amendments are not feasible to be incorporated into the Citizenship Act. Earlier, dual citizenship was covered under the Citizenship Act. However, the current procedure where applicants are given visas for five years enabling them to live in Sri Lanka during that period, and which period is considered as a term of probation for the applicants, apparently does not fit into the Citizenship Act.

"The new system to grant dual citizenship will initially be akin to granting a visa, and therefore, will not fit into the Citizenship Act," DIE Deputy Controller, Harsha Ilukpitiya said.

"The Legal Draftsman's office has incorporated this amendment under the Citizenship Act, which is not appropriate" he added.

The process explaining the process that has taken over a year to be implemented, while officials tasked to formulate the conditions for dual citizenship continue to shuffle their feet, Ilukpitiya said: "Following the discontinuation of granting dual citizenship in January 2011, a new system to grant dual citizenship to Sri Lankans living overseas was prepared under the guidance of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The amendments had been carefully vetted by a four-member committee and submitted to the Cabinet on 11 January 2012. The Cabinet granted approval for the new amendments on 12 April 2012, and the preliminary draft which was finalized on 16 July 2012, was sent to the Legal Draftsman's office for approval the next day, through the Ministry of Defence, as is the required protocol."

Source:http://www.emirates247.com/news/sri-lanka/dual-citizenship-for-expat-sri-lankans-hangs-in-the-balance-2013-02-27-1.496602

Julia Gillard faces internal revolt on 457 visas

JULIA Gillard is facing dissent in the cabinet and caucus over her attack on 457 visa rorts, with critics claiming the crackdown is damaging the government's credentials with business.

Internal fears are being raised, including by some Gillard supporters, that the move has subjected Labor to claims of xenophobia and failed to ease anger in western Sydney over the influx of asylum-seekers.

Some MPs, however, are pushing the Prime Minister to go further in policing 457 visas, while others argue she is merely protecting Australian workers.

But the dissenting MPs believe the 457 program is essential for economic growth - in all areas - and needs to be flexible to meet ebbs and flows in the demand for skilled workers.

"It is part of our main migration program," one Labor MP said.

An MP who did not want to be named described the 457 issue as "sinister" and a "throwback to the White Australia policy".

Another said that, while the changes to the regime announced by Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor were "quite mild", the rhetoric used to deal with it "doesn't sound like Labor".

Trade Minister Craig Emerson said the government's tightening of 457 visa processes was designed to achieve the original intention of the visa category: "that is, to meet temporary skills shortages where genuinely there aren't Australian workers to fill the positions".

After this week pledging the government wanted to "stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue, with Australian workers at the back", Ms Gillard and Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor have later in the week cited rorts of the system as the government's reason for toughening the 457 visa regime.

Ms Gillard yesterday defended her stance, saying she was interested in protecting Australian jobs and rejecting claims her message was damaging national harmony or the economy.

"I believe we should only be looking for temporary workers from overseas if there are skills shortages that we cannot fill any other way," Ms Gillard said.

"Mr Abbott believes that temporary workers from overseas should be a mainstay of our migration program; I just don't think that's right."

Ms Gillard said Australia continued to accept migrants who made it permanently their home and became Australian citizens.

"It's been good for our economy; it's been good for our society," she said.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, in a speech in Melbourne, said successive generations of migrants from all corners of the world "have made Australia much stronger and richer than we would otherwise have been". "It is worth pondering for a moment where Australia would be today, in terms of both our living standards at home, and our standing in the world, had we simply shut the door after World War II . . . our population stagnating at a little more than 8 million people," he said.

Declaring population policy "fundamental for the future", Mr Rudd said Australia had instead managed to become the 12th largest economy in the world and a member of the G20.

Ms Gillard said the Howard government had not invested enough in skills and training and cited her experience of meeting overseas-trained doctors and nurses in hospitals.

"We need their skills," she said. "When Mr Abbott was minister for health we did not train enough doctors and nurses."

A spokesman for the Opposition Leader said: "The 457 visa program is a demand-driven program. That's why the use of 457s has almost doubled since Julia Gillard became Prime Minister. It would remain a demand-driven program to address skills shortages under a Coalition government."

The number of people training to be doctors, nurses and other health professionals, including psychologists, had increased when Mr Abbott was health minister or had increased since that time because of measures that he announced as health minister.

Labor senator Doug Cameron said the government should look at introducing inspectors, funded by major mining companies to make sure 457 visa conditions, including workplace standards, were being properly adhered to.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson yesterday stood by his comments in June last year when he said the domestic labour force might not be big enough to meet the peak in construction demand on mining projects, prompting the government to introduce fast-tracked processing of 457 visas and enterprise migration agreements.

Mr Ferguson said his comments were "consistent with Labor's policy of always putting Australian workers first".

"Achieving the potential of our resources industry depends on having the workers needed to deliver on the pipeline of new investment being created, which leads to long-term Australian jobs in the operations phase," he said.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Labor cites 22pc rise in 457 visas as evidence of need for crackdown

• AAP 
• March 09, 2013 4:32PM

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THE federal government moved to shore up its case for a crackdown on 475 visas by releasing figures today showing a 22.4 per cent year-on-year increase in skilled foreign workers under the program.

Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor said there were more than 105,000 people working in Australia at January 31 on the temporary visas for skilled workers.

“The overall trend is clear - more people are coming in on temporary skilled worker visas. This comes at a time when the unemployment rate is flat, not dropping,” Mr O’Connor said.

The release of the figures follow a week in which Julia Gillard pledged to “stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue, with Australian workers at the back".

Her comments, made during a discussion about jobs during a visit to western Sydney, led to accusations that she was exploiting foreign worker xenophobia to the Governments vote in the area. The Prime Minister has rejected the charge, arguing that the visa program had been abused at the expense of local workers.

In a statement issued today, Mr O’Connor said that the figures backed the Gillard Government’s plan to close loopholes in the 457 visa program “to ensure that local jobseekers are not disadvantaged by unscrupulous employers bringing in temporary workers from overseas”.

The government plans to restrict the number of workers a business can sponsor on 457 visas, tighten the definition of eligible jobs and toughen up rules to ensure visa-holders are paid market rates, amongst other changes to the program.

Mr O’Connor has previously said rorts were rife in the 457 system, citing more than 100 sanctions against visa holders, and that the presence of visa-holders had pushed down wages in some occupations.

There were 125,070 workers on 457 visas in Australia in the 2011-12 financial year, the largest annual number of the documents handed out under the program so far.

The Australian’s Paul Kelly reported today the 105,325 people working on 457 visas in January was far in excess of the number during the Howard years.

In 2012-13 Labor planned a permanent skilled migration intake of 129, 250 people, he added.

The 457 visa scheme was introduced in 1996 to allow local business to fill skills shortages with overseas workers able to stay for up to four years, bring their families and travel in and out of Australia as often as they want.

Unions have long objected to the scheme but the opposition backs it as an effective means of filling skill shortages with few rorts.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the figures released today proved nothing other than that Labor had handed out more 457 visas than any other government.

Mr Morrison said the figures jumped from December to January because it was Christmas.

"To suggest there are rorts because more visas have been handed out is like suggesting there is a drought because the sun is shining. One is not evidence of the other,'' he said.

"All I have called for in the wake of the government`s announcement is to produce the report of the inquiry or the investigation conducted by the department that demonstrates the widespread rorting and abuse that the government claims, and that is absent.''