Welcome to Harris Wake

Harris Wake is a multidisciplinary firm specialising in Australian and New Zealand immigration, and also offering general legal services. Harris Wake provides migration and visa services for Australia and New Zealand in association with Migration Matters.

Migration

Harris Wake specialises in a handful of legal areas but is primarily focused on migration advice and migration legal representation.
Our clients are a mix of overseas and onshore visa applicants and employers looking to sponsor overseas workers.
Migration Law is a complex area of administrative law and is often in the headlines. Whilst people often confuse migration with "boat people" this group of asylum seekers represents less than 3% of all migrants into Australia.
Australia is desperately short of qualified, skilled, experienced workers and in spite of the rhetoric from both sides of Parliament the vast majority of arrivals into Australia add significant value to the economy and our culture.
Australia's education industry is also worth billions of dollars, and earlier failed policies have done much damage. The recent Knight report has recognised the failures and has made 41 recommendations to fix the international student market.
Another significant area for migration is family reunion. Whilst government policy has significantly reduced the numbers of parents allowed to join their Australian citizen or permanent resident children here, whilst at the same time increasing significantly to the cost of application, there remains strong demand for this avenue.
Our firm works with employers, prospective employees, overseas students and families providing advice on visa options and preparation of visa applications.
We liaise daily with DIAC on behalf of our numerous clients.
Our firm is also strongly committed to the plight of legitimate refugees coming to our country, and actively campaigns against offshore processing and draconian policies of the current government.
Where DIAC refuses to grant visas, we represent our clients in the various Federal courts and assist them in applications in the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunals.

Legal Services
In addition to our Migration team we also provide legal services in the fields of criminal law, family law, defamation and contract law, as well as general advice on a range of other areas of the law.