Abstract
There are many examples of the regulatory guardian standing at the entry gate of professional life. None have infiltrated so expansively into the education and entry of a profession as the Office of the Migration Agent Registration Authority (OMARA). Since 2006 the OMARA has dictated the course content requirements for the prescribed qualification of migration agents, determined and regulated the exams to be taken by students within each university, and consistently imposed a competency-based education framework that stifles the education and preparation agents need for practice.
Australian migration agents fall into a unique space within legal work. They are not lawyers, nor are they clerks; instead, section 276 of the