Most conflict checks are a name search that returns a match or no match. That is a useful thing to know and it is not the question the Code asks.
Section 34 of the Code of Conduct creates two categories of conflict with opposite consequences. One you disclose, and may then act. The other stops you acting at all, even with the client's consent. A search designed to produce a yes or a no cannot tell you which one you are in, and that determination is the whole exercise.
Two categories, two outcomes
Conflicts you disclose and manage
Section 34(1) covers an interest — pecuniary or otherwise — that conflicts, or could conflict, with the proper performance of your duties in relation to a client.
Note the reach of "could conflict". The provision is not limited to interests that have already caused a problem. A referral arrangement that has never once influenced your advice is still an interest that could conflict.
Where one exists, you must not give immigration assistance unless two things happen: you give the client written notice of the interest, and the client gives you a written statement that they have been given notice of the conflict and still wish you to act. Both directions, both in writing. A note on the file that you mentioned it is not compliance.
Section 34(3) offers a practical concession: the notice and the client's statement may both be included in the service agreement covering the assistance. For known, structural conflicts — a standing referral relationship, a related sponsor entity — building the disclosure into the agreement is the cleanest route.
Conflicts consent cannot cure
Section 34(4) is the provision to test against before you reach for a consent form.
An agent must not give immigration assistance to a client, even with the client's consent, where the agent has an actual conflict of interest with the client's interests and, as a result, either the agent's objectivity or the relationship of confidence and trust could be compromised, or the agent is reasonably likely to breach the client's confidentiality.
Three things follow. The bar applies to an actual conflict, not a potential one. The trigger is a could, not a would — compromise need only be possible. And confidentiality gets its own limb, which is what makes acting for two clients with diverging interests so difficult: the risk is not that you will choose one over the other, it is that you will know something about one that you cannot unknow while advising the other.
If you land in section 34(4), the answer is not a better disclosure. It is not acting.
What the disclosure actually has to say
The notice content is prescribed, and it is more searching than most practices realise. Under section 34(2) it must include:
- details of the nature of the interest
- details of how the interest conflicts, or could conflict, with the proper performance of your duties to the client
- where relevant, the name of the person or body providing the interest and the reason it is being, or has been, provided
- if the interest is pecuniary, the amount, or a reasonable estimate of it
OMARA's summary of the changes describes this as strengthened protection, requiring disclosure in writing of all benefits received, pecuniary or otherwise, including the nature of the benefit, the amount, and the reason it is provided.
Read that against a typical referral arrangement. Disclosing that "we may receive a commission from third-party service providers" satisfies none of the four requirements. You have to name who pays you, how much, and why.
What you are actually searching for
Because the trigger is an interest that could conflict, the search cannot be limited to previous clients with matching names.
- Both sides of a sponsored matter. Where you act for a sponsor and an applicant, the conflict is structural rather than incidental — a breakdown in the employment relationship puts you between two clients.
- Family units where interests may diverge. A relationship that ends mid-application converts a shared file into two opposed positions.
- Commercial interests in a client's outcome. Ownership of, or payment from, a labour hire company, education agency, training provider or accommodation service connected to the matter.
- Referral fees and commissions in either direction. Money you receive and money you pay both create interests to disclose.
- Your own prior involvement. Advice previously given to someone now on the other side of the matter carries a confidentiality problem that outlasts the engagement, because section 35 covers former clients.
Relatives are expressly in scope
Section 34(5) removes an argument before it can be made. To avoid doubt, a conflict of interest may arise in relation to an agent or a client because of an interest of a relative of either.
Both directions matter. Your brother's recruitment business is your interest for this purpose. So is a family relationship between your client and the sponsor they are relying on, where that relationship bears on the matter.
A conflict search that only indexes clients and matters will never surface either. The register has to record interests, not just names.
When the conflict appears mid-matter
Conflicts rarely arrive at intake. They arrive when a marriage breaks down, a sponsor restructures, or a client mentions in passing who introduced them to you.
The current Code handles this less mechanically than the former one, which set a 14-day process for telling the client, advising them you could no longer act, and ceasing. Section 34 now operates as a continuing condition on giving assistance: from the moment the conflict exists, you must not give immigration assistance unless the notice-and-consent condition is satisfied, or — where section 34(4) applies — at all.
That has a practical consequence worth stating plainly. The trigger is the conflict, not your discovery of it, so the gap between the two is your exposure. It is a good reason to ask the questions that surface interests early, and to record the answers.
Where you do have to stop, the termination machinery in section 57 governs how, including the written notice, the status of the pending matter, and what happens to any client money you hold.
A workflow that produces evidence
- Ask interest questions at intake, not just identity questions. Who introduced you? Who is paying? Who else is involved in this matter? Record the answers on the file.
- Search a register of interests, not only a list of clients — entities you have an interest in, arrangements that pay you, arrangements you pay, and relatives' interests you are aware of.
- Classify before you draft. Is this section 34(1), or is it section 34(4)? Write the reasoning down; a decision that you could act is worth more later than a consent form on its own.
- Draft the notice against the four required elements, and name amounts.
- Get the client's written statement back, or build both into the service agreement. Our guide to fee disclosure and client agreements covers where the disclosure sits alongside the fee terms.
- Re-run the check at events, not just at intake — a new party joining the matter, a change in relationship status, a new referral source.
The conflict register test
- Could you list, today, every arrangement that pays your practice a referral fee or commission?
- Does your check cover sponsors, employers and family members, or only applicants?
- For your last disclosed conflict, did the notice state the amount and the reason the benefit was provided?
- Do you hold the client's written statement in response, or only their verbal agreement?
- Is there a recorded classification decision distinguishing a disclosable conflict from a disqualifying one?
Where a system helps
Conflict checking fails for a structural reason: the information that would reveal a conflict is captured in intake notes and email, while the check runs against a client list. The two never meet.
What fixes it is making relationships first-class data — parties linked to matters, referral sources recorded against the file rather than in someone's memory, disclosures stored as documents with a client response attached, and a check that re-runs when a party is added rather than only when a matter is opened.
LodgeHQ links parties, matters and referral sources so a check searches what actually matters. Start a free trial, or audit your wider position first with our Code compliance checklist.
Verify before you rely on it
Conflict provisions were among those most changed in the current Code, so material written before 1 March 2022 — including any internal policy citing clause 2.1A — is describing a repealed rule. Read the current text: the prescribed Code and the Regulations on the Federal Register.
This is general information for migration practices, not legal advice. Where a specific conflict arises — particularly one that might fall under section 34(4) — get advice on that matter before you continue acting.