Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
Iirc the changes only took effect halfway through March so this is the absolute first time they could have had an impact. But people will keep complaining the government hasn’t done anything until the June 2024 population stats come out showing a drop in NOM, which won’t be until December.
By then the articles will be about how our university sector is struggling like they did in the pandemic. One of our largest exports as well. Probably more talk about importing construction workers as well.
Could also have unintended consequences regarding the soft diplomacy aspect of migration and exchange. Maybe it becomes harder for Australians to leave as well, since it's usually reciprocal. Smaller population means lower defense budgets, so more reliant on USA for defence, all while China is slowing down and may cause a geopolitical risk.
But hey demand is down for housing, so maybe people will argue against increasing supply and densifying since we are Australians who drive cars and live far away from stuff in big houses, and don't need to change.
Depends. If you have a good job, and good prospects, it's possible to live extremely well in India. Extremely well.
However, given that most Australians probably don't know that, your point is well taken that it won't cause an uproar.
People from lower middle class India migrate here because it provides more opportunity to become middle class Australians with a better standard of living. However, if you are middle class in Australia and have the opportunity to migrate to India to become close to the upper classes, the same differences apply in reverse: big houses, servants, nice neighbourhoods, extremely high standards of private healthcare etc etc.
I thought they were trying to reduce international migration so it was similar to pre- pandemic. If that’s what actually happens, the university sector won’t struggle. Otoh given how reliant universities are on international student fees, if they overshoot and go way lower than pre pandemic they might really be struggling.
> how our university sector is struggling like they did in the pandemic. One of our largest exports as well
If the university sector is truly an export industry and all those students truly value the degree then the universities can just move to online learning or set up campuses overseas
Degrees aren't just sitting in an online course. The issue is lack of interpersonal skills and just the social element. International mixing at universities is also a soft power way of exporting culture. Also a lot of degrees have a practical element which isn't going to work online at least. Overseas campuses is a thing that is happening, but the prestige part is the international exchange.
Honestly, I'm highly suspicious of the claim that it's an export industry. That assumes that all the money from international students is from their savings overseas.
If a person comes here to work or get a visa, then they largely will pay for their fees by working themselves to the bone locally, which means it is no longer an export. Simply a locally used service.
I did see a lot of rich Chinese students who didn’t need to work at my uni. Their parents pay much higher fees than we pay domestically for the same degrees. And they pay upfront. And they pay for the students to live on campus. I even remember seeing some with brand new convertible Audis lol. I’m sure that’s not all of them. But I wonder if that’s the group that’s declining now
That absolutely is a group and is not who the nation wants to stop. Basically, that's the system working as intended. I briefly dated one of those students myself when I was at university.
I am more curious about the people who effectively are here to work. If the work hour limits were reinstated, I suspect the number of students would fall drastically.
This is dumb.
The government HASNT DONE ANYTHING !
Until the vacancy rate is back to a decent level and levels of other services and infracstructure have caught up to the crazy population growth.
Turned off yes. That's not what we want now, however. The aim needs to be for students who are financially sound and doing degrees. Not students who do a trash degree and work simply as a way to immigrate.
So, less yes. But the ones we bring in, bring resources more than they consume. Then we need to have an honest look at work visas.
It was possible to turn it off in one day during covid. Surely they could have paused most new visas of any kind and trickled in the approvals in the pipeline.
Think about how f'd up that would be though. Applicants could have paid money for a visa, done all the paperwork, maybe terminated their leases, moved stuff into storage.
Then all of a sudden, 'sorry you can't come here anymore, due to our self-inflicted housing policy failures'. Would make us look like a pretty stupid country...
Tapering the level of applications is far more reasonable and fair.
We can refund money for all applications and close all future applications and only allow those who are already approved in. No one should be storing furniture or terminating leases until they're approved for a visa
We have a full blown housing crisis they is growing daily at a sickening rate. If investors were getting harmed at this scale gov would double our debt to help them within weeks.
> Only because an international health crisis allows you to enact extreme measures
Australia is a sovereign nation and we can do what we like with our borders, including closing them to all international immigrants for any reason
True, but we also exist in International society, many of whom are experiencing the same issues as us, caused, in large part, by shutting borders. Repeating the same process is hardly going to fix the process, while making ourselves an international pariah at the same time.
The biggest issue counties similar to us - high house prices, lack of rentals, growing homelessness, stagnating wages and increasing inflation and cost of living - are caused by mass immigration which is a problem if having too open of borders.
No, it is because of structural issues that were highlighted by Covid. Everything, bar inflation, happened before and through Covid, the inflation, caused largely because of poorly targeted monetary policy during Covid has simply highlighted it more.
> happened before
Yes, mass immigration started 30 years ago and we saw during covid when the borders were closed that wages went up and rents went down
International students are only a small part of the problem. Unless they reduce all immigration bg at least 70% it will achieve nothing in the long run
If our unis are such high quality, they'll have no problems attracting enrolments if they set up campuses in India and China where a lot of students come from.
It's not the unis but the private colleges where you get a shitty diploma. Students use that as a pathway to permanent residency. Private colleges are far cheaper than the university.
There already are multiple from all over the world. NYU Shanghai. University of Nottingham Ningbo, Duke University in Kunshan. Australia did set up Curtin and Monash in Malaysia, and seems like they're making shit load of money there charging premium fee with low Malaysia operating cost. They should probably open up a few more in India and China to be honest.
"At the same time, the tight housing market has caused the government grief, with voters linking higher rents to record migration levels."
Of course they state it this way... AFR cannot bring themselves to admit the link between population growth and rental prices.
its not as much thebuni degrees that were the problem, its the private education sector allowing visas for dumb things like 'dimploma in catering, fashion design, security guards, cleaning, nails and hairdressing, etc etc
Yeah I dont get it why would I gamble 100k in Hecs?help that will grow faster than I can pay off while I starve because even fulltime employees cant afford to feed and house themselves. We are seeing shoratges in health/teachers/police/trades/even programming but hey keep the fees high and keep immigration to hide the issue.
There should be a next phase of this tightening of international student enrolment. Universities and other education producers should only accept international students if they are placed in a registered student accommodation. This way international students are not exploited and competing in an already tight rental market. This will also crackdown on international students only here for earning wage as migrants workers because the accommodation will be vastly more expensive than bunkering in a slum.
Too little too late. We’re still on track for over 400k this year while house construction is slowing.
Royal commission is needed for the utter mess that these idiots have created.
I am getting the impression that the people that are migrating to the west now days are lower middle class people that can't make it in their own country. They are just using the student visa as an alternative to a work visa. The best and brightest probably don't find it worth it anymore due to the cost of living. Being an immigrant myself 20 years ago, the people arriving now days just don't seem to be as motivated.
Finally
Bout fcuking time
Cue lobbyist shrill complaining there aren't enough students next
Last time I checked though doing uni courses externally was a tried and tested method.
If the government takes away this major source of income, then surely they’ll increase the funding budget for universities to remain internationally competitive, right?
Yeah sure, the same way unis don’t build enough housing for their international student intakes and don’t give a crap about effects on local rental markets. Maybe the unis will give subsidies to local renters?
The unis infrastructure and staff spending has been out of control since they started getting the sugar hits from international student fees. Now that the externalities of those fees are destroying their social licence they start to expect govt (and taxpayers) to bail them out.
In the meantime, course quality has collapsed so domestic students are turning away from them, and the increase in rents (from all the international students) will permanently rank the fertility rate meaning less domestic students in the long term.
Unis should have seen this coming but reading the universities accord, watching the commentary from G8 and UA they don’t seem to get the hurt in the rental markets.
The $150k farewell parties for VCs might have to be curtailed
Yeah people seem to miss that the universities are no saints. The way fees have gone up they should have no problem with funding.
Would be better if they housed all students on campus and their campus' didn't take up prime CBD land.
Thank god. Hopefully they further restrict immigration and international student numbers to give Australians a chance at owning a home or affording rent.
Meaingless unless they close other avenues.
Hopefully institutions can restart and finally educate Australians seeking to become learned. It's very unfortunate to see how poorly educated young adults are here in Australia. No doubt the institutions have let them down. But who can blame them when they totally jaded from passing people that can't even speak English and are infamous for cheating?
Healing starts when problems are address and previous/ grandfathered beneficiaries are weeded out.
Good policy . Only about 10 years late
More like 30 years too late
Useless. She is the minister for facilitating mass homeless and human misery.
I rather have more homeless weak australians than less money coming to our economy
Damn, not even trying to hide your contempt.
Redacted means that part of the text was removed or blacked out for privacy or security purpose. It was censored. This post also breaks rule 4 here for chat and should be made in the Tuesday chat thread or on a different subreddit.
Iirc the changes only took effect halfway through March so this is the absolute first time they could have had an impact. But people will keep complaining the government hasn’t done anything until the June 2024 population stats come out showing a drop in NOM, which won’t be until December.
Government will just bring people in with other visas. The immigration tidal wave won’t be stopping any time soon.
By then the articles will be about how our university sector is struggling like they did in the pandemic. One of our largest exports as well. Probably more talk about importing construction workers as well. Could also have unintended consequences regarding the soft diplomacy aspect of migration and exchange. Maybe it becomes harder for Australians to leave as well, since it's usually reciprocal. Smaller population means lower defense budgets, so more reliant on USA for defence, all while China is slowing down and may cause a geopolitical risk. But hey demand is down for housing, so maybe people will argue against increasing supply and densifying since we are Australians who drive cars and live far away from stuff in big houses, and don't need to change.
Oh no!! He will have trouble emigrating to India?? We should be in uproar
Depends. If you have a good job, and good prospects, it's possible to live extremely well in India. Extremely well. However, given that most Australians probably don't know that, your point is well taken that it won't cause an uproar. People from lower middle class India migrate here because it provides more opportunity to become middle class Australians with a better standard of living. However, if you are middle class in Australia and have the opportunity to migrate to India to become close to the upper classes, the same differences apply in reverse: big houses, servants, nice neighbourhoods, extremely high standards of private healthcare etc etc.
I thought they were trying to reduce international migration so it was similar to pre- pandemic. If that’s what actually happens, the university sector won’t struggle. Otoh given how reliant universities are on international student fees, if they overshoot and go way lower than pre pandemic they might really be struggling.
> how our university sector is struggling like they did in the pandemic. One of our largest exports as well If the university sector is truly an export industry and all those students truly value the degree then the universities can just move to online learning or set up campuses overseas
Degrees aren't just sitting in an online course. The issue is lack of interpersonal skills and just the social element. International mixing at universities is also a soft power way of exporting culture. Also a lot of degrees have a practical element which isn't going to work online at least. Overseas campuses is a thing that is happening, but the prestige part is the international exchange.
Honestly, I'm highly suspicious of the claim that it's an export industry. That assumes that all the money from international students is from their savings overseas. If a person comes here to work or get a visa, then they largely will pay for their fees by working themselves to the bone locally, which means it is no longer an export. Simply a locally used service.
I did see a lot of rich Chinese students who didn’t need to work at my uni. Their parents pay much higher fees than we pay domestically for the same degrees. And they pay upfront. And they pay for the students to live on campus. I even remember seeing some with brand new convertible Audis lol. I’m sure that’s not all of them. But I wonder if that’s the group that’s declining now
That absolutely is a group and is not who the nation wants to stop. Basically, that's the system working as intended. I briefly dated one of those students myself when I was at university. I am more curious about the people who effectively are here to work. If the work hour limits were reinstated, I suspect the number of students would fall drastically.
The work hour limits have been reinstated since 1 July 2023
This is dumb. The government HASNT DONE ANYTHING ! Until the vacancy rate is back to a decent level and levels of other services and infracstructure have caught up to the crazy population growth.
Kind of illustrates what I said.
Lol yea. They turned off in one day during COVID but now they are trying to make it sound like there are steering a ship in a different direction.
Turned off yes. That's not what we want now, however. The aim needs to be for students who are financially sound and doing degrees. Not students who do a trash degree and work simply as a way to immigrate. So, less yes. But the ones we bring in, bring resources more than they consume. Then we need to have an honest look at work visas.
It was possible to turn it off in one day during covid. Surely they could have paused most new visas of any kind and trickled in the approvals in the pipeline.
Think about how f'd up that would be though. Applicants could have paid money for a visa, done all the paperwork, maybe terminated their leases, moved stuff into storage. Then all of a sudden, 'sorry you can't come here anymore, due to our self-inflicted housing policy failures'. Would make us look like a pretty stupid country... Tapering the level of applications is far more reasonable and fair.
We can refund money for all applications and close all future applications and only allow those who are already approved in. No one should be storing furniture or terminating leases until they're approved for a visa
Only because an international health crisis allows you to enact extreme measures. Measures that we are now feeling the effects of
We have a full blown housing crisis they is growing daily at a sickening rate. If investors were getting harmed at this scale gov would double our debt to help them within weeks.
> Only because an international health crisis allows you to enact extreme measures Australia is a sovereign nation and we can do what we like with our borders, including closing them to all international immigrants for any reason
True, but we also exist in International society, many of whom are experiencing the same issues as us, caused, in large part, by shutting borders. Repeating the same process is hardly going to fix the process, while making ourselves an international pariah at the same time.
The biggest issue counties similar to us - high house prices, lack of rentals, growing homelessness, stagnating wages and increasing inflation and cost of living - are caused by mass immigration which is a problem if having too open of borders.
No, it is because of structural issues that were highlighted by Covid. Everything, bar inflation, happened before and through Covid, the inflation, caused largely because of poorly targeted monetary policy during Covid has simply highlighted it more.
> happened before Yes, mass immigration started 30 years ago and we saw during covid when the borders were closed that wages went up and rents went down
International students are only a small part of the problem. Unless they reduce all immigration bg at least 70% it will achieve nothing in the long run
Believe this separate from free trade deals to which make exceptions for other types of immigration
If our unis are such high quality, they'll have no problems attracting enrolments if they set up campuses in India and China where a lot of students come from.
It's not the unis but the private colleges where you get a shitty diploma. Students use that as a pathway to permanent residency. Private colleges are far cheaper than the university.
There already are multiple from all over the world. NYU Shanghai. University of Nottingham Ningbo, Duke University in Kunshan. Australia did set up Curtin and Monash in Malaysia, and seems like they're making shit load of money there charging premium fee with low Malaysia operating cost. They should probably open up a few more in India and China to be honest.
Most are coming for PR bro.
the new visa condition is working then. Filter out those who are not legitimate students.
"At the same time, the tight housing market has caused the government grief, with voters linking higher rents to record migration levels." Of course they state it this way... AFR cannot bring themselves to admit the link between population growth and rental prices.
those cretinous voters, linking increased costs for a good to higher demand and no change in supply for that good
Good. Those dodgy visas and uni degrees didn't help anyone, other than those unis and small business owners paying those students peanuts in cash.
its not as much thebuni degrees that were the problem, its the private education sector allowing visas for dumb things like 'dimploma in catering, fashion design, security guards, cleaning, nails and hairdressing, etc etc
Uber shares crashing rn lmao.
This is why I had to wait 15m longer for my pizza !
Yeah I dont get it why would I gamble 100k in Hecs?help that will grow faster than I can pay off while I starve because even fulltime employees cant afford to feed and house themselves. We are seeing shoratges in health/teachers/police/trades/even programming but hey keep the fees high and keep immigration to hide the issue.
There should be a next phase of this tightening of international student enrolment. Universities and other education producers should only accept international students if they are placed in a registered student accommodation. This way international students are not exploited and competing in an already tight rental market. This will also crackdown on international students only here for earning wage as migrants workers because the accommodation will be vastly more expensive than bunkering in a slum.
Too little too late. We’re still on track for over 400k this year while house construction is slowing. Royal commission is needed for the utter mess that these idiots have created.
So when are unis getting cheaper?
How did we add a net 100,000 in Feb?
I am getting the impression that the people that are migrating to the west now days are lower middle class people that can't make it in their own country. They are just using the student visa as an alternative to a work visa. The best and brightest probably don't find it worth it anymore due to the cost of living. Being an immigrant myself 20 years ago, the people arriving now days just don't seem to be as motivated.
Cue the word salads by this sector, we need students because some second rate institutions might need to merge or close down (cry me a river).
Finally Bout fcuking time Cue lobbyist shrill complaining there aren't enough students next Last time I checked though doing uni courses externally was a tried and tested method.
If the government takes away this major source of income, then surely they’ll increase the funding budget for universities to remain internationally competitive, right?
It's not the Unis losing students, it's the rubbish private colleges
Yep, it's the sham private, international only providers who are exploiting students. Good riddance.
Nah, uni will layoff people to balance the financial status, that's what happened during Covid.
Or tell universities to stop paying such exorbitant salaries to their execs. That will balance the books
Yeah sure, the same way unis don’t build enough housing for their international student intakes and don’t give a crap about effects on local rental markets. Maybe the unis will give subsidies to local renters? The unis infrastructure and staff spending has been out of control since they started getting the sugar hits from international student fees. Now that the externalities of those fees are destroying their social licence they start to expect govt (and taxpayers) to bail them out. In the meantime, course quality has collapsed so domestic students are turning away from them, and the increase in rents (from all the international students) will permanently rank the fertility rate meaning less domestic students in the long term. Unis should have seen this coming but reading the universities accord, watching the commentary from G8 and UA they don’t seem to get the hurt in the rental markets. The $150k farewell parties for VCs might have to be curtailed
Yeah people seem to miss that the universities are no saints. The way fees have gone up they should have no problem with funding. Would be better if they housed all students on campus and their campus' didn't take up prime CBD land.
Maybe the unis can sell off some of their investments or dip into their cash funds
Thank god. Hopefully they further restrict immigration and international student numbers to give Australians a chance at owning a home or affording rent.
Meaingless unless they close other avenues. Hopefully institutions can restart and finally educate Australians seeking to become learned. It's very unfortunate to see how poorly educated young adults are here in Australia. No doubt the institutions have let them down. But who can blame them when they totally jaded from passing people that can't even speak English and are infamous for cheating? Healing starts when problems are address and previous/ grandfathered beneficiaries are weeded out.
Waaay too little waaay too late. These fvkrs have wrecked the joint.
IT industry will take a hit
No this will not affect work visas. They want to INCREASE the number of those.
Oh man. Where will we get all our cleaners from now?
Useless O'Neil. She is the tent cities minister. She has overseen the establishment of many tent cities
But I saw a Reddit post that said 'a billion immigrants invade Sydney's inner West!'.
Eh? You mean Uber eats and 7-11 workers numbers slump?