SI Rockingham – Guest Speaker Kirsty Fentiman



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SI Rockingham Helen Makeham presenting guest speaker Kirsty Fentiman, Migration Agent for SCALES (Southern Communities Advocacy Legal and Education Service) with a small token of appreciation at the October dinner meeting held at the Ocean Clipper Inn, Rockingham on every second Tuesday of the month at 6.30 p.m.

Kirsty had 15 years in IT before doing a Law Degree and starting work with SCALES Community Legal Centre in Rockingham. She deals with a range of work which involves working with vulnerable people on humanitarian visas and does part of her work through Murdoch University, Rockingham Campus. Usually SCALES has 2 to 3 agents working with about 100 clients a year but with lost funding the agents are now reduced to 1 person. Australia has a legal requirement under the World Refugee Programme to take refugees which come under visas with 5 different reasons to seek asylum.

Mostly SCALES works with clients already based in the community with student/visitor/visa/temporary work visas being the greater mix of people applying.

SCALES traditionally doesn’t work with boat arrivals.

Australia immigration numbers are around 13,000.14,000 per year.

Usually 50% of people already in the community obtain visas. 90% of maritime refugees (boat people) obtain visas of which 99.7% are from Afghanistan.

After a very informative question and answer session Kirsty enjoyed the dinner meeting with the SI Rockingham members.