Australia’s Immigration Response to Myanmar’s Crisis:

Policy, Practice and the Case for Reform

This seminar is an online event via Zoom

Date: May 25, 2026 (Monday)

Time: 06:00 – 07:00 PM (Melbourne Time)

          02:30-03:30 PM (Myanmar/Yangon Time)

Join Zoom Meeting: please click here 

Meeting ID: 896 6683 9791

Passcode: 522994

Presenter: Ko Ko Aung

Description: Since the 2021 military coup, the displacement crisis in Myanmar has placed sustained pressure on Australia’s immigration and protection system. Myanmar nationals in Australia, students, skilled workers, family members, and those seeking protection, now navigate a complex set of visa pathways shaped as much by ministerial discretion and shifting policy settings as by the formal legal framework. 

Drawing on frontline casework, this seminar examines how Australia’s immigration system is responding in practice: where pathways are working, where they are producing prolonged uncertainty, and how outcomes for Myanmar nationals compare with those afforded to other displaced cohorts.

The seminar will then turn to the policy and advocacy landscape, the role of submissions, sector coalitions, and evidence-based engagement with government in shaping more responsive settings, and the contribution that research institutions, practitioners and the diaspora can each make. The aim is to equip attendees with a clearer picture of the current state of play, and to open a discussion about constructive avenues for reform that align with Australia’s broader bilateral engagement with Myanmar. 

Ko Ko Aung is an Australian-qualified lawyer practising in immigration and refugee law, with a client base spanning Australia and clients from countries across the world. His practice covers protection visa applications, merits review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, ministerial intervention, and family and skilled migration matters, giving him broad, comparative visibility of how Australia’s immigration framework operates across very different displacement, family and labour-mobility contexts. Within that broader practice, he has a sustained professional interest in matters connected to Myanmar, and contributes to policy submissions, professional commentary and community legal education on issues affecting the Myanmar diaspora in Australia. He works with community organisations and sector colleagues on initiatives linking individual casework to broader policy settings. His underlying interest is in ensuring that policy debate on Australia’s immigration and protection system, including its response to displacement from Myanmar, is informed by evidence drawn from the lived experience of those most directly affected.

Questions and Answers will follow the presentations. 

For more information about AMI, please visit aummi.edu.au/.