Conflict of Interest -soft power. How a Sydney based migration agents' lobby group seeks to control the Victorian Law Institute's Migration Committee
Anthony Robinson
Owner & Principal Solicitor: Master Immigration Lawyer at AR Law Services: Australian Immigration & Regulatory Lawyers. Specialist Crimmigration & Blockchain Lawyers.
Those of you who have been reading my "posts" - missives - for a while will know that I have been at war with the MIA. (For those who don't know the MIA is a Sydney based migration agents' lobby group whose public position is anti Immigration Solicitors and an impediment to a fairer and more just Australia Migration System for Refugees and Migrants)
Reader may also know I have been a member of an influential Law Institute of Victoria's Committee since about 2006: The Migration Law Committee. (And I first joined the MIA in 2003 but soon after my founding of the Victorian Immigration Solicitors Alliance. VISA in mid 2019, the MIA demanded my resignation and in a fit of peak they then excommunicate me).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/visa-anti-migration-agents-pro-rule-law-promoting-refugee-robinson/
So why should lawyers be worried about the malignant MIA?
There are many examples of how the public position of the MIA can be viewed as "anti" the best interest of Australian Legal Practitioners, but the most glaring is the insistence by the MIA that immigration solicitors remain shackled to the yoke of a second tear of regulationary burden through the office of MARA.
A system that the productivity commission, the Law Counsel of Australia, countless commissions and now it appears (finally) the Australian Parliament concedes is detrimental to Immigration Solicitors, yet the MIA thunders it must remain. The president of the MIA wrote, in a most condescending recent article: that the campaign by VISA et al to end the so called "dual regulation" was nothing more than the vanity of Australian Legal Practitioners and dismissed it as a trifle, no more than a symbol of solicitors' "professional pride". (The purpose of the president's edict was not only to promote the MIA position that dual regulation is necessary to keep those "upperty" lawyers in their place but also to pour scorn on the concept that merit should be rewarded and recognized.)
I will spare you the reasons why this Sydney based migration agent lobby group wish to cling to the old and ineffectual system of dual regulation suffice it to say the MIA see "dual regulation" as key to their financial survival. (click here for more)
https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/heretic-expelled-banished-from-mia-anthony-robinson/
Many lawyers still fail to appreciate that the MIA is a lobby group of a type like the American concept of Big Tobacco or NRA (National Rifle Association). It is extremely well funded - from a significant "start up" grant from Australian tax payers to ongoing corporate support, from lucrative licencing deals and high membership fees, ensure the MIA war chest is bursting. And it is this growing wealth that makes the MIA such a malignant threat to Australian Legal Practitioners and those who believe in the rule of law.
But I hear you sigh - what is Robinson banging on about this time - well I am concerned that the cancer of this Sydney based migration agents' lobby group may have spreed and taken or seeks to take hold of the Law Institute of Victoria's Committees: particularly committees that deal with migration and refugee matters.
To understand this better I believe it is important to understand or agree on what I mean when I speak of the concept of a "conflict of Interest" As noted in a paper by the Australian Public Service Commission.
The principle is a simple one. When you're making a decision at work you should only be influenced in that decision by factors that are genuinely relevant to it. You shouldn't be influenced by, for example, the impact that it might have on you, members of your family, or your friends. Your only motivation has to be the public interest, not your private interests.
And what does the Law Institute of Victoria say about conflict of Interests.
A solicitor must act in the best interests of the client and remain independent, unaffected by bias or the solicitor’s personal interests. This is because the solicitor is considered to be in a dominant position, where the exercise of undue influence, (intentional or otherwise) places the interests of the solicitor in conflict with the duties owed to the client.4 (Here the client should be seen as fellow solicitors or LIV membership fee subscription payers.)
The issue of conflict has become exquisite for certain Committees of the LIV that deal with refugee and migration law matters. The question that should be posed is can a committee member of a Law Institute of Victoria committee in good conscience accept a financial reward or other benefit from an openly hostile lobby group such as the Sydney based migration agents group called the MIA.
The clear and simple answer is no.
Therefore given it is impossible for one person to serve two masters: or to have two masters to whom they owe allegiance, I believe lawyers who have paid membership fees to the LIV have a right to ask the members of LIV committees where do those committee members loyalties truly lie?