The Coalition will abolish the Temporary Graduate visa for most international students as part of a sweeping migration policy designed to cut Australia’s temporary visa population by around 650,000.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Shadow Immigration Minister Jonno Duniam announced the policy today, saying international graduates would instead be required to leave Australia and apply from offshore for a skilled visa if they wanted to return to work. The Coalition also said it would ban secondary applicants attached to international students.
Existing Temporary Graduate visa holders would be grandfathered and transitional arrangements would apply, while exceptions would remain. Priority areas including health and education and graduates of regional universities were mentioned during the unveiling of the policy as possible exceptions to the abolition of the Temporary Graduate visa.
The Temporary Graduate visa is one of two major levers the Coalition says will deliver the proposed 650,000 reduction in the temporary visa population. The second is requiring most people seeking a second or subsequent visa to leave Australia and apply from offshore.
The Coalition also indicated that new overseas student commencements would be reduced from the current national planning level of 295,000 to around 240,000 a year. The precise detail of how the reduction would operate is yet to be released.
Taylor said graduates who left Australia would still be able to return on a temporary skilled visa, but only if they met the eligibility requirements.
“If someone has graduated here, they can go home and come back again on a temporary skilled visa,” Taylor said.
“That pathway will be there, but it won’t be automatic. They have to meet the eligibility requirements of [a] temporary skilled visa.”
The Coalition framed the changes as a move away from migration pathways attached to study and towards migration based directly on Australia’s skills needs.
Duniam said some universities and other education providers had moved towards “selling a pathway to some form of permanency, or perhaps even citizenship, rather than education”.
“That’s not what this scheme was set up for,” he said.
Taylor returned to the argument when questioned about the potential impact on universities, saying migration pathways should be determined by government rather than education providers.
“The perception is, I think, with some strong justification, that some of our universities have been selling not education, but migration pathways,” he said.
“Migration pathways should be managed and controlled by the government, in the interests of Australia and the Australian people, not by the universities.”
Asked whether the policy could have unintended consequences for universities that rely heavily on international student revenue, Taylor said universities needed to provide “world class” education and argued that some were not delivering an adequate educational experience.
But the response did not directly address the potential impact on future student demand. Abolishing the Temporary Graduate visa would represent a fundamental change to Australia’s international education offering, removing the post-study work pathway for most graduates.
That potentially affects not only the number of graduates remaining in Australia, but the attractiveness of Australia as a study destination for students who place a high value on post-study work opportunities.
Duniam said the Coalition was confident universities could manage the reduction and foreshadowed a separate Coalition education policy addressing the university sector. He also criticised universities where international students made up around half or more of enrolments.
“That’s not what public universities were built for,” Duniam said.
The international education measures sit within a broader migration strategy under which net overseas migration would be targeted at 100,000 in each of the first two years of a Coalition government, rising to 130,000 in the third year and 160,000 in the fourth. The permanent migration program would remain capped at 185,000 a year.
The Coalition also plans to accelerate processing of the large number of people on bridging visas, saying the Department of Home Affairs would be directed and resourced to clear outstanding applications more quickly.
The Coalition took a different view of working holiday makers. Matt Canavan said the Working Holiday Maker program was “not a problem”, arguing participants were generally working, often in regional areas, and then spend money in Australia. By contrast, the Coalition pointed to graduate, student and bridging visas as key contributors to growth in temporary migration.
Taylor said the strategy was based on “reducing the numbers, but raising the standards”, with migration increasingly directed towards areas of identified skills need.
The Coalition also argued that shifting the mix towards temporary skilled visa holders would improve the economic contribution of the migration program.
Taylor said student and Temporary Graduate visa holders generated between $7,000 and $14,000 in tax income on average, compared with more than $30,000 for a temporary skilled visa holder, and said the Parliamentary Budget Office had been involved in analysing the package.
From the fifth year of a Coalition government, Taylor said migration levels would be capped according to housing supply. Under the proposed approach, the immigration and housing ministers would make a statement setting out available housing capacity, with migration subsequently capped according to that assessment.
Full details of the policy changes have not yet been released, with the measures outlined so far at the Coalition’s media conference.
