By Leith van Onselen A fortnight ago, the Victorian Government called for a review of entry requirements into Australian universities after growing evidence had emerged that foreign students with poor English language proficiency are badly eroding education standards and placing undue strain on lecturers and university staff. This was immediately followed by academics admitting to Fairfax
By Leith van Onselen Farmers and tourism operators have hit back at the union movement for lobbying to restrict access to working holiday maker visas, claiming it would decimate regional economies. From The Daily Telegraph: Government analysis reveals the Australian Council of Trade Unions push to scrap the second year of the program would send
By Leith van Onselen Labor and the union movement has sparked a pre-election war with farmers over its plan to restrict access to working holiday maker visas. From The Daily Telegraph: The Australian Council of Trade Unions is using its influence to pressure Bill Shorten to review the scheme with a view to ban backpackers
By Leith van Onselen The great Australian immigration rort has hit a whole new level of ridiculousness today, with Chinese tourists and international students helping to drive an absurd 311% increase in asylum seeker claims. From The ABC: Key points: People claiming to be Christian, LGBTI and love children are among those seeking asylum All
By Leith van Onselen The Productivity Commission’s (PC) Migrant Intake Australia report, released in 2016, recommended significantly tightening parental visas and raising their price, given they are costing taxpayers an estimated $335 000 to $410 000 per adult, or between $2.6 and $3.2 billion per annual intake in present value terms (and growing): There is
By Leith van Onselen RBA Governor, Phil Lowe, must live on another planet to be so out of touch. On Wednesday, Lowe warned that white collar workers may soon feel downward salary pressure because of technology and globalisation: To illustrate his point, Dr Lowe said he was aware of “senior executives” in Sydney who no
By Leith van Onselen MichaelWest.com.au published the below ad from an outfit named Sydney Migration International spruiking the sale of Significant Investment Visas (SIV) to wealthy investors seeking multiple residency and tax regimes: Sadly, these types of visas are booming: The number of millionaires streaming into Australia has surged to 7260 in the past year…
By Leith van Onselen If you want a textbook example of why Australia’s skilled visa program is a giant fraud, look no further than the top five occupations granted permanent visas in the skilled stream in 2017-18: Accountants (3505) Software Engineer (3112) Registered Nurses (1561) Developer Programmer (1487) Cook (1257) According to the Department of
By Leith van Onselen The Morrison Government’s ‘migrants to the bush’ smokescreen has been comprehensively exposed with regional migration approvals hitting a decade low. From The ABC: Regional visa approvals have fallen to their lowest levels in a decade as the Federal Government prepares to introduce a scheme requiring new arrivals to work outside the
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday, a group of academics warned that the Coalition’s expanded backpacker visa scheme is ripe for exploitation: These significant reforms effectively create an agriculture visa without necessary checks and balances. The visa extension makes backpackers dependent on employers – a recipe for exploitation. And it fails to oblige employers to protect
By Leith van Onselen Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected the National Party’s proposal to introduce a new class of visa aimed at addressing a purported shortage of farm workers. The proposal was put to Cabinet by Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, but in addition to Morrison, the scheme was opposed by Home Affairs Minister Peter
By Leith van Onselen The lobby group representing foreign students in Australia – the Council for International Students in Australia (CISA) – has warned that a tougher stance on immigration from a Peter Dutton led Government could jeopardise Australia’s tertiary education exports. From The AFR: The Council for International Students in Australia said foreign potential
By Leith van Onselen Amid the explosion of foreign student visas with work rights, who are remaining in Australia for up to four years on graduate work visas following their studies: As well as the ballooning in bridging visas, which have blown-out by 40,000 over the past year, as well as by 90,000 since 2014:
By Leith van Onselen Analyst Conrad Liveris has picked apart the ABS’ quarterly employment data and revealed that younger Australian’s are finding it incredibly difficult to gain secure employment. From BuzzFeed: Nine out of every ten jobs created for Australians under the age of 25 in the last year were part-time, according to research… While
By Leith van Onselen Ever since the Turnbull Government supposedly tightened 457 temporary ‘skilled’ visas last year, we’ve seen it quietly loosen the immigration spigots in other areas. Yesterday, we witnessed another example, with the Coalition allowing special visas to regions with so-called skill shortages. From SBS News [my emphasis]: Australian regions with niche skills
By Leith van Onselen The Productivity Commission’s (PC) 2016 Migrant Intake Australia report explicitly called for the abolition of the Significant Investor Visa and the Premium Investor Visa programs, whereby Australian citizenship is sold to high net worth individuals without the usual (albeit weak) checks and balances: Because there are no English-language requirements for the
By Leith van Onselen Appearing on 3AW’s Neil Mitchell program earlier this month, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull claimed that the Government will this year reduce the non-humanitarian permanent migration intake to “somewhere between 170,000 and 180,000”, from 184,000 in 2016-17: Yesterday, The ABC revealed that while modest cuts to the permanent migrant intake have been made,
By Leith van Onselen Let’s recall Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s lies last week about the causes of Sydney’s and Melbourne’s population pressures: Malcolm Turnbull: The thing that is driving the increase in foreigners in Australia – which is included in this term net overseas migration (NOM) – is foreign students, who are not part of
By Leith van Onselen Mark Wright, a partner and Asia Pacific immigration leader with Deloitte, is the latest to moan about the loss of ‘skilled’ 457 temporary work visas. From The Australian: At what point did immigration become a dirty word? It is a debate with high stakes for the Australian business community which must
By Leith van Onselen The federal government’s 457 temporary ‘skilled’ visa program ended on 18 March, and will now be replaced by the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa. A component of the Temporary Skilled Visa will be the Global Talent Scheme (GTS), which is a trial program that will commence in July and initially run
Via Domainfax: The Fair Work Ombudsman will investigate companies offering unpaid internships for which some students paid $1000, following a report by Fairfax Media. The Ombudsman, Natalie James, said the report raised “serious questions” about the internships hosted by web developer Future Squared and recruitment by Industry Placements Australia. Some graduates paid a $990 “administration
By Leith van Onselen In June 2016, ABC’s 7.30 Report documented systemic fraud within Australia’s working and student visa programs (summary post here), whereby Melbourne Indian community leader, Jasvinder Sidhu, explained his first-hand accounts of widespread visa rorting and corruption: NICK MCKENZIE: In a series of conversations, the visa fixer asked Jasvinder Sidhu to find
By Leith van Onselen In this year’s Federal Budget, the Coalition promised to impose a levy of up to $1,800 per annum on companies for each worker they employ on a temporary skilled visa. The measure is aimed at raising some $1.2 billion over four years, with the money to be used on skills training.
By Leith van Onselen The Productivity Commission’s (PC) Migrant Intake Australia report, released last year, recommended significantly tightening parental visas and raising their price, given they are costing taxpayers an estimated $335 000 to $410 000 per adult, or between $2.6 and $3.2 billion per annual intake in present value terms (and growing): There is
By Leith van Onselen Back in March, new WA Premier, Mark McGowan, showed that unlike his federal Labor counterpart, Bill Shorten, he actually cares about his workers. McGowan wrote to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to remove Perth from the Regional Sponsorship Migration Scheme, thus effectively preventing a pathway for overseas workers to gain a visa
By Leith van Onselen Two years after the 7-Eleven migrant worker scandal first broke, and the veritable conga-line of stories emerging about the systemic abuse of Australia’s various migrant worker programs, the bill to prevent worker exploitation has finally been passed by parliament. From The Canberra Times: Employers, particularly franchise chains, face stiff new penalties
By Leith van Onselen Ever since the 7-Eleven migrant worker scandal broke in 2015, there has been a regular flow of stories emerging about the systemic abuse of Australia’s various migrant worker programs. The issue was highlighted in all of its hideous glory when the Senate Education and Employment References Committee released a scathing report
By Leith van Onselen After extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign by the Franchise Council of Australia, led by former Liberal Small Business Minister Bruce Billson, the Turnbull Government earlier this year delayed a vote on a bill to prevent worker exploitation. Now the Coalition is in negotiations in the Senate, and the bill reportedly hangs in the
By Leith van Onselen HSBC has today issued a news release predicting that the number of Chinese students studying in Australia is set to boom over the next 5-10 years: The number of Chinese studying abroad will increase seven times in the next 5-10 years with Australia the most popular destination in Asia and fourth
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday, WAM Capital’s Matthew Kidman wrote a article in Business Day arguing that Australia must increase population growth, in particular immigration, or it risks destroying the economy. Let’s take a look. THE first policy a new federal government should dust off when elected next year is ”Big Australia”… The reality is
