English Australia has issued a press release on yesterday’s Labor announcement of increasing visa fees. It reads:
Yesterday, the Treasurer announced Labor will raise the student visa application fee for the second time in 12 months. Last time it was increased by 125% from $710 to $1,600. Now, it will go up to $2,000.
English Australia, the national peak industry body for the English language teaching sector, strongly opposes this move and the economic and social damage it will cause Australia.
The government has claimed this new student visa fee increase will raise $760 million dollars more for the government over the coming five years. English Australia notes that it will actually cost the Australian economy far more in lost export earnings, lost jobs, and falling domestic spending.
When Labor increased the student visa fee by 125% in July last year, it became the most expensive student visa in the world. More than double the 2nd most expensive, 5x the USA’s student visa fee and 10x Canada’s.
That fee increase caused applications for student visas for study in the English language sector to drop by 50%. This drop has worsened since due as well to record levels of visa application refusals. Today, applications for a student visa to study ELICOS are at their lowest point since 2005. The sector has lost 20 years of investment.
The average ELICOS enrolment is approximately 18 weeks long, not 3 years like a degree. That makes the average course fee approximately $5,000. A $2,000 visa application fee is totally disproportionate.
This $2,000 fee is also wholly unreasonable as a non-refundable fee when the visa application process lacks transparency, consistency, or fairness. The latest data on appeals of visa refusals to the Administrative Review Tribunal shows that 48% of refusals were reversed on appeal, only 14% were affirmed as fair, correct, lawful decisions. (Note: appeals are only available to applications made in Australia. More than 70% of refusals are of applications made outside Australia. Almost all new international students and the vast majority of ELICOS students come from outside Australia.)
The last visa fee increase has already cost 1,000s of Australians their jobs. This new increase will see more Australians lose their jobs. It will see Australian businesses shuttered. These losses won’t only be in ELICOS colleges. They will be in tourism, hospitality, and retail too. (Note: International students contribute approximately 40% of all tourism earnings.)
English Australia urges the incoming government to avoid excessive visa fees and to instead pursue a fair and reasonable student visa system. English Australia urges the government to support the ELICOS sector and the many thousands of Australians employed in the sector by reducing the student visa fee for short course enrolments, such as ELICOS course enrolments.
