In a follow-up to One Nation’s wider migration-cut agenda, the party on 15 September doubled down on proposals to stop international students from applying for successive visas while in Australia, a practice it labels “visa hopping.” New figures obtained by AAP show student-visa appeals at the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) have ballooned to more than 53,000 cases, almost double the load of two years ago. One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce argues that forcing students to apply for any further visa offshore would clear the ART’s backlog and deter non-genuine applicants. Education providers, however, warn the measure would “decimate” a sector already reeling from cost-of-living pressures and the Australian dollar’s rise. The International Education Association of Australia says universities now depend on foreign students for up to 30 per cent of their revenue and employ 250,000 Australians across campuses and supply chains. Labor is drafting its own reforms aimed at lifting English-language and financial-capacity requirements, but insiders say it is unlikely to endorse an absolute offshore-lodgement rule. Department of Home Affairs data show that refusal rates for student visas have already climbed from 9 per cent in 2023-24 to 14 per cent in 2025-26 following earlier integrity measures. Migration lawyers caution that abrupt procedural changes could overwhelm offshore processing centres and prolong decision times, undermining Australia’s competitiveness against Canada and the UK. They suggest a risk-based triage system and improved data-sharing with education regulators as more effective tools. The government’s long-awaited Migration Strategy, due later this year, is expected to balance calls for tighter student-visa controls with the need to maintain a pipeline of graduates for critical-skills shortages – especially in engineering, IT and healthcare.
Source: The Queenslander / AAP
