Thursday, June 2, 2011

Overseas Student Visa Breaches

Thursday 2nd June 2011/ac

Kelvin Thomson MP
Federal Member for Wills

Overseas Student Visa Breaches

An investigation by the Audit Office has discovered that in March 2010 a backlog of 350,000 non-compliance notices which had been issued concerning international students for breaches of their Visa conditions. Breaches relate to things such as when students fail to start a course, fail to attend classes, or fail to pass subjects. It is fair to say that many of these breaches would be regarded as not very serious. It is also fair to say that by March 2011 that 145,000 of the non-compliance notices had been resolved by departmental staff.

Nevertheless 350,000 breaches of Visa conditions is way too many when we remember that there were 400,000 overseas students living in Australia in 2009-10. It is a matter of real concern that the Auditor-General Ian McPhee found it was “not feasible for the department to actively monitor if all 400,000 students has breached their Visas”, including whether they had worked more than 20 hours a week. This is still more evidence that the doubling of overseas student numbers from 204,000 in June 2002 to 467,000 in June 2009 gave us an overseas student program which got quite out of control. In 2001 the Howard Government changed the rules to allow overseas students to remain in Australia after completing their courses in Australia, rather than requiring them to return to their home country as was previously the case. This turned the focus of the overseas student program from getting an education to getting permanent residence in Australia.

The fact that the Department cannot successfully monitor whether the conditions of student Visas are being adhered to indicates either that the number of student visas is still too high, or that we need to put more money into Departmental monitoring. Either way, the benefits of overseas student programs have been exaggerated, and the costs underestimated. Student visa conditions such as actually undertaking a course, and not working more than 20 hours a week, go to the heart of the purpose and integrity of the student visa program. They must be complied with.

Kelvin Thomson MP
Federal Member for Wills

5 comments:

  1. A student or student/work visa is the easiest entry into Australia, and as has been shown, the easiest to abuse. However Australia mostly benefits from both the overseas student industry and from the overstayers as workers. Perhaps you are suggesting we should concentrate on hunting down and casting overstaying or non-complying students into detention centres and leave boat people alone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Wendy, Have you tried to rent a house in an area with high OS student numbers?
    Have you tried getting a job in areas where OS students work "part-time"?
    Rents are higher and wages are lower because of the doubling of OS student numbers in the past decade. Sure landlords benefit because of higher rents and business owners have a greater pool of potential workers which lower wages. But those of us competing with OS students in the housing or labour markets are clearly worse off. Those who benefit are those who are already well off, and I would suggest that this is mostly not the average Australian.

    ReplyDelete
  3. which had been issued concerning international students for breaches of their Visa conditions. Breaches relate to things such as when students fail to start a course...Student Visa

    ReplyDelete
  4. While asylum seekers get more than proportional media attention, they are a smoke-screen for the real immigration program - economic immigration. With Tony Burke's failure to address the topic of a sustainable population, as per his title, we still have no limits to how many people can live here. Population growth is compromising our cities, our food security, our national and our cultural identity. The price of housing, rates, energy and water are soaring because of population growth, and it's the easiest way for governments to make money. Our "skills shortages" is manufactured - due to lack of education funding - as an excuse for immigration.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Howard government was disingenuous, smuggling people into the country under the guise of giving them an education. Such subterfuge! If they were a drug company, we could sue them for false labeling...

    ReplyDelete