THE role of migration agents and the services available to people in rural and regional NSW were the focus of an information session at Dubbo Neighbourhood Centre this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Alex Burns and Henriette de Jong from Northern Settlement Services (NSS) visited the centre on Thursday.
Mr Burns said NSS offered immigration advice through registered migration agents.
"They are accredited professionals who advise on visas and various programs you work with to get visas, and because we're a charitable organisation we do it in a cost-effective way," he said.
"Migration agents can advise employers and support people applying for family visas as well.
"Also, people who come as tourists who want to stay, and people who come as temporary skilled migrants and think working and living in Australia is a good life and they'd like to stay.
"Various visas can lead to being allowed to stay permanently while others won't allow you to stay.
"Statistics now for the permanent migration program, just in terms of that you're looking at something like 128,000 people coming in the skilled stream.
"That's permanent settlers coming with various trades and professions, families, families reuniting, or you might have met this great fellow somewhere in the world and you want to get married, to get him into Australia can cost you another pile of money."
Mr Burns said one reason it was important the services were offered beyond the metropolitan area was some visas required people to work for several years in a regional area.
"And they don't mean Wollongong or Newcastle, they mean beyond," he said.
"Difficulties can arise when people come to an area expecting to get employment in a profession or trade, and those positions aren't available, so they have to look for other work.
"Sometimes they're extremely disappointed because they can't find anything, they get upset because they've done a university degree in their homeland and might have years of experience in that, only to come here and that experience isn't looked at, perhaps their qualifications aren't taken on board, there's a whole lot of things."
Western NSW Community Legal Centre principal solicitor Patrick O'Callaghan, who was among those who attended the session said a particular issue had been instances where people had been brought in from overseas on work visas and been exploited by employers in regional areas.
Mr Burns said another aspect of his role was mentoring settlement workers in Orange, Bathurst and, in the case of Dubbo, settlement services case worker Teagan Martin.
"It's particularly important that people like Teagan can help us offer this service because while there are some solicitors who do it, migration agents aren't as common out here as they are in a place like Sydney or Melbourne."
Ms Martin urged local residents to contact her so she could help point them in the right direction.
"I've had people who are seeking information about bringing their family over to Australia, for instance, and they're not sure about what visa they should apply for, the cost and who they need to talk to," she said. "If I'm not able to give them advice on a particular matter, I can refer them to a migration agent. Visas can be very expensive and you don't want to be applying for something that is not right for you."
