SCORES of foreign students, suspected of using bogus documents to support permanent residency applications, have been discovered by Federal Government migration fraud investigators.
More than 60 students, whose documents were initially accepted as genuine by the Government, will be forced to leave Australia if they are unable to prove their documents are authentic.
It is the latest indication that rorting in the lucrative $15.5 billion international education industry — the nation’s third-biggest export earner — is a serious problem, which could undermine the integrity of Australia’s education and immigration systems.
The students are suspected of using fake references from employers, which claim to show they have 900 hours’ work experience in a job related to their area of study.
Foreign students are required to provide evidence of 900 hours’ work experience to support their applications for permanent residency.
Sources in the international education industry have told The Age some students pay up to $20,000 to rogue college operators or middlemen, such as unscrupulous migration agents or education agents, to obtain fake paperwork.
Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) is the body nominated by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to assess skills, including those of foreign students. Under the Australian migration system, a successful skills assessment by TRA can be used by foreign students to support their permanent residency applications.
In the last financial year, TRA received 34,180 applications for skills assessment, about 10,000 of which were from foreign students. TRA initially accepted the documents of the students in question as genuine. But after the Federal Government received information suggesting their paperwork could be bogus, it sent letters to the students threatening to revoke their successful skills assessments if they did not prove their documents were authentic within 28 days.
More than 60 such letters have been sent to foreign students since the start of the year, with 48 sent last month alone.
The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, which investigates matters relating to international education refuses to say how many students have already had successful skills assessments revoked.
“Disclosing departmental actions as part of quality control and fraud measure could adversely impact on the administration of the program,” the department said in a statement to The Age.
The students are believed to be either close to the expiry of their student visas or on bridging visas. Either way, they will be expected to leave the country within 28 days if they are unable to prove their documents are genuine.
The identification of students suspected of using bogus documents follows the discovery of an alleged racket uncovered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in March.
Three migration agents were allegedly providing fake documentation to support permanent residency applications for foreign students based on their claimed skills in a number of occupations, including cooking, hairdressing, horticulture work and car mechanics.
Investigations are continuing into possible offences relating to forgery and migration fraud, which carry penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Source : www.theage.com.au
purchases at various shopping centre stores using altered credit cards and false identification. 
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Ramsay fires back at Grimshaw
Posted in Local News, tagged "sexist, A Current Affair, abusing, aimed, allegations, allegedly, angry reaction, appearance, arrogant, at the food show, attack, audience, Australia, avalanche, bitter, blown out of proportion, branding, Britain, bully, calling, celebrity chef, chefs, comments, compared, confine, congratulating, deeply mortified, denied, disgusting, extra-marital affair, Fairfax Radio Network, fired, fray, gay., generated, global, Good Food and Wine Show, Gordon, Gordon Ramsay., Grimshaw, guilty, Health Minister, himself, homophobic remarks"., insinuations, intended, joke, Julia Gillard, kevin rudd, kitchen, lawyers, lesbian, Local News, long-running, Melbourne's, Melbourne's Yarra River, members, Mr Rudd's deputy, Ms Gillard, narcissist, New Zealand, Nicola Roxon, nine network, offensive, outburst, overwhelmed, photo, pig, Prime Minister, private life, program, prop., public, public rant, Ramsay, rant, ratings, reflected, remorse, report, reporters, sad, scrutinised, second, sex god, sexuality, stop, support, Tana, The Mail Online, The Mirror, tongue-in-cheek, too far, Tracy Grimshaw, TV chef, TV presenter, uninformed, US, US celebrity watcher Perez Hilton, veteran, viewers, volley, weekend, wife, women, women's groups. on June 9, 2009| 1 Comment »
Days after a public rant aimed at Tracy Grimshaw, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has fired a second volley branding the TV presenter “sad”
and “bitter” for defending herself.
Ramsay denied calling the Nine Network veteran a lesbian at a weekend appearance at Melbourne’s Good Food and Wine Show during which he also allegedly compared her to a pig, using an offensive photo as a prop.
Ramsay on Tuesday said he was “deeply mortified” that his intended joke had been blown out of proportion – and that was before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the chef’s comments reflected a “new form of low life”.
Mr Rudd’s deputy Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon joined the fray, saying Ramsay should confine himself to the kitchen and stop abusing women.
But there was no remorse from the TV chef after Grimshaw used her A Current Affair program on Monday to take him to task over his food show rant.
Ramsay on Tuesday said he’d never used the word “lesbian” to describe Grimshaw, and said she herself was guilty of a “disgusting” attack on his wife Tana, who’s due in Australia in two weeks.
“She’s obviously doing it for the ratings,” he said of Grimshaw, speaking to reporters after a run along Melbourne’s Yarra River.
On Monday, Grimshaw branded Ramsay a bully and an “arrogant narcissist”. She said he’d made “uninformed insinuations” at the food show about her sexuality, and she told her viewers she was not gay.
Grimshaw said that before a recent interview for her program, Ramsay had insisted she refrain from asking about his private life following allegations of a long-running extra-marital affair.
“We all know why,” she said.
She added: “… I’m not surprised by any of this. We’ve all seen how Gordon Ramsay treats his wife – and he supposedly loves her. We’re all just fodder to him.”
Asked if he could understand how Grimshaw felt, Ramsay told reporters: “I never once said the word lesbian, I was having a tongue-in-cheek joke – it was not at her expense.
“For me on a personal front, to see how sad and how bitter for someone to come out like that, for a renowned pro to come out and stoop that low, is disgusting.”
He said tapes of the alleged incident were being scrutinised by his lawyers.
Mr Rudd was firmly in Grimshaw’s corner on Tuesday, congratulating her for giving Ramsay a “left uppercut” in her reply.
“I think I can describe his remarks as reflecting a new form of low life,” he told the Fairfax Radio Network.
“I just drew breath when I saw the sort of stuff which was said about her. I just think that’s off and offensive.”
Earlier, Ms Gillard said the celebrity chef should stay in the kitchen.
“I think perhaps what he should do is confine himself to the kitchen and make nice things for people to eat rather than make public comments about others,” she said.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said there was no need for “women to be abused in our community at any level”.
Grimshaw said she had been overwhelmed by the avalanche of support she’d received.
The fallout from Ramsay’s rant has gone global, spreading to his homeland Britain and to the US and New Zealand.
Britain’s The Mirror sent up Ramsay in a report headlined: “Good thing Gordon Ramsay is such a sex god.”
“Gordon is such a handsome devil, a veritable sex god come to Earth to live among men, you can understand why he might feel that mere mortals are unworthy of his presence,” the report said.
The Mail Online carried a report about the outburst and the angry reaction it had generated among audience members and women’s groups.
US celebrity watcher Perez Hilton said Ramsay had gone too far with his “sexist, homophobic remarks”.
Source www.ninemsn.com.au
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