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Labor announces new rules requiring international students to apply for a separate visa to transfer courses, and targets migration agents and lawyers selling false hope to people seeking to stay in Australia.
International students will soon need to apply for a separate visa to transfer courses under new rules announced Friday by the federal government. The changes are part of a broader crackdown on visa hopping and permanently temporary migration.
Student Visa Transfer Rules
Home affairs minister Tony Burke said the new rules would put an end to student visa hopping. He said it was all about ensuring we have a migration system that Australians can be confident in. The changes build on previously announced rules that prevent international students from transferring to a lower grade course. That includes switching from a bachelor's or master's degree to a vocational program.
The assistant minister for international education, Julian Hill, said the changes would stop the increase of permanently temporary migration. He said when Australians go to another country they do not believe they have some God-given right to hop around from visa to visa for years or decades and game other nations' appeals and courts systems. He added that neither should guests in our country.
From 1 July 2027, a student's visa will not be extended even if they are transferring into a different course. Hill said this would prevent rorting. He said it ensures students cannot just not turn up for the first 6 months, fail their subjects, then go to a cheaper provider. In the interim, a student will not be able to transfer within 12 months of beginning a course.
Targeting Misleading Migration Agents
Migration agents and lawyers selling false hope by helping individuals pursue baseless visa claims will also be targeted. The government is proposing changes to ban migration agents from assisting with an application they know, or reasonably ought to know, does not have a reasonable factual or legal basis. Hill said the Department of Home Affairs would consult on how to ensure migration lawyers are also held to account for similar poor practices.
He said increasingly sophisticated forms of migration-related misconduct and a small number of bad actors cause disproportionate harm. He said they often target people at vulnerable points in their lives when they are highly susceptible to misleading claims, false promises and unrealistic assurances. He added that taking cash in those circumstances is not helping people, it is exploiting them and selling false hope.
Hill said one lawyer had submitted an application with the intention of it being refused, it being appealed to the administrative appeals tribunal to be refused again, and then ultimately being submitted for a ministerial intervention. He said there had also been some pretty outrageous online advertising by lawyers.
He said ads appeared to coach people on how to claim they are bisexual when they are not, or how to convince the department they are being persecuted when they are not, in order to support a protection claim. He said the current system for lawyers authorises and arguably requires them to act for clients in ways that damage the administration of and public confidence in Australia's migration system.
Migration Reform and Bridging Visas
The changes are part of a broader reform package to lower net overseas migration. The government has been forced to amend rules without separate legislation because it does not have the support of the Coalition or the Greens. Separately, there are now more than 400,000 people on bridging visas. These are temporary visas that can be issued if a visa expires and someone is waiting for a decision on their next application, or to asylum seekers and non-citizens.
A large cohort of these can be international students applying for a different visa. The government is trying to bring this number down.
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