growth lobby foreign students

This article describes an example of the serious and inhumane impact, in the form of crisis involving several individuals, and a specific suburb and hospital system, of Australian immigration policy. The government is maintaining a policy of high mass immigration contrary to the wishes of the majority of citizens. Citizens have no useful outlet and no effective parliamentary representation on this.
The mass media covers matters in a manner that keeps the arguments circular and without constructive democratic outlet. For this reason candobetter.net serves an important purpose in expressing peoples' views and in exposing the impacts of the government's undemocratic and environmentally and socially harmful policy.

Student industry - easily abandoned cash-cows

In this article the push by universities to get students from overseas to make up finance shortfalls that once were supplied from taxes comes under the spotlight.  The article looks at the cost to Australian students deprived of places and the cost to foreign students of maintaining their places.  It also looks at how Victorian hospitals' bed shortages are a direct result of the effective push by the growth lobby to have more and more people in this country.

There is little revealed in the media of foreign student struggles, their impact on university courses and standards, their access to residency, and scams. Universities have become another industry, outsourced globally for economic benefits rather than institutions that aspire to quality education, learning, ethics and research – and a way to ensure our young people are able to reach their potential equitably.

Open to rorts and scams

The Federal government migration program, designed to attract thousands of young, highly skilled students to fill Australian jobs, has been "corrupted" by a Melbourne man who created a sophisticated scam that rorted the already dubious system.

Carmine Amarante made tens of thousands of dollars, and was expecting more in the future, by manufacturing hundreds of fraudulent documents for international students to ultimately become permanent residents.

The student scam also allows “students” to enter Australia without sufficient financial support, without tickets and money to pay for their air fares to return to their countries.

Our own personal experience

We have experience with an international student we were in contact with, from a country in South America. I will call her “G” so not to identify her.

We helped her find accommodation and we have invited her to join us for a few social and cultural events.

G has been under terrific stress - no job, no money, failed exams, not being able to pay rent, and then she developed a mental health issue - paranoia, delusions, crying and became suicidal.

She started a fire in the rented house she is in, and burnt her clothes and linen. She suffered bouts of paranoia and called the police three times, thinking she was being assaulted or raped.

G asked for help. We took her to a GP and he referred her to the local public hospital - one of the biggest in Melbourne. We stayed with her for 12 hours in the hope of getting a bed.

After my partner spent many hours with her, not long after he left she was released by the hospital, to another “student” who arrived at the emergency ward last moment. He had no money, was almost illegal himself, with inadequate accommodation and no car.

She had to be picked up at the station. She was threatening to escape, and she vowed she wasn't going to take “drugs”!

She was using her acquaintances and friends to borrow money. She had no job, her rented room was almost expired, and she wasn't welcome where she had been living.

Excessive stress on foreign students

This kind of situation has occurred before, with very serious consequences, such as when Huan Yun "Allen" Xiang, a 46 year old Chinese student with little social support, shot several people in his class at Monash university in 2002. Although Xiang might have developed paranoid schizophrenia anyway and was presumably a permanent citizen, since he ended up indefinitely at Thomas Embling Hospital for the criminally insane, he seems to have been isolated by language difficulties. As he began shooting, it was reported that "People in the classroom were initially confused by the noise and by Xiang screaming 'You never understand me!' from the desk he was standing on."[1]. He would would also “curse the lecturer constantly in Cantonese” from the back of classrooms.[2]

It should be recognised that the stress of being away from one's family and compatriots and studying in a new language, without adequate finances or whilst acquiring large debts, is guaranteed to increase health risks. If Universities are to have foreign students they should be responsible, caring and hospitable towards them and liaise with the Department of Immigration and the students' embassies. In the days of Columbo Plan students, foreign student welfare was taken seriously, but this caring attitude has fallen away as foreign students are now simply seen as cash cows.

Population growth drives bed shortages for locals and for immigrants

Our recent crisis was made worse by Victoria's hospital bed shortages. The impact of high population growth means that there was no bed for G at the local hospital. Despite overcrowding in this hospital already, the Victorian government is planning to greatly increase population and housing density in the surrounding suburban area. The “shortage” of beds is due to not the number of beds dwindling, but to our population boom!

G is not illegal at the moment as her visa has not expired. She was given more time to pay the university fees that she owes. If this time expires, so will her visa. There are no funds coming from her family. They live in poverty, and G was actually expected to sent money to them!

Quite legal to be vagrant in Australia

After ringing up “Immigration dob-in line,” I was informed that it is quite legal to stay in Australia unless the visa has expired, or there is some evidence of fraud. This is despite students being without income, accommodation, or not being able to pay for study fees. Even illness can't force them to be deported.

In Continental Europe, not having suitable accommodation or funds are grounds for being refused entry or sent home.

The Immigration Department won't do anything about students in need, or those causing problems to themselves or others until they are illegal! They don't even have to have money or ticket, (depending on the student visa type) and if they don't manage, Australian authorities generally do nothing!  G can be destitute here and there is no duty of care from our government. The department of Immigration suggested that I should contact charities!  Already our charities are over-used. 

Foreign students are silently allowed to “fall through the cracks” of social support, but any criticism and exposure of them is based on “racism”?

Abandoned by the Embassy

The embassy of the country G came from was not interested in her difficult situation in Australia. They had no funds, despite the Ambassador being on a salary of $20,000 per month, with an office in Canberra!

The university tried to contact her, but got no response. We don't know where the money for her ticket home is coming from.

She is now in a public hospital ward in a psychiatric unit.

Poverty of foreign and Australian university students

Governments are reluctant to pay for the costs of educating Australians, and to give them the support they need. The growth of demand from international students, most of them from Asia, is a way of filling a potential gap in university enrollments which are now beyond the means of most Australians to pay. Foreign students are willing to pay for their own education, at full costs, at no expense to the Australian government.

Education has become Australia’s third largest export earner, after iron ore and coal.

High student poverty rates

Universities Australia has reported that one in eight Australian students surveyed by them told of regularly going without food or other necessities because they did not have enough money. According to the National Union of Students the maximum Youth Allowance benefit that an Australian student under 25 and living in a share house can receive is $245 per fortnight, which is 38% below the poverty line ($645.15 per fortnight). No wonder students are struggling.

Population groups which may be at particular risk of food insecurity include homeless people, those on low income or living in poverty, including people on pensions and benefits, unemployed people and students - including international students.

Universities Australia’s most recent survey found that one in eight students regularly go without food or other necessities because they don’t have enough money. Money Help’s financial counsellor Brian Kerr says, most of the students I’ve helped are international students who find themselves in financial difficulty. Students are on such a low income but the cost of being a student is so high.

Tips and services to keep you above the poverty line

Foreign students little more than slave labour

Overseas students getting as little as $6 an hour to work in local Asian restaurants are too afraid to complain for fear of losing even the meagre wages paid by their unscrupulous bosses.

They are here as cash-cows, to provide willing, cheap and flexible labour to businesses.

Little media attention

There is very little in the media about the problems of international students. It's a hidden industry, and the costs to our already strained charities is ignored.

The implications of universities being starved of funds and having to rely on international students has impacts on Australia's job market, especially for local students. Education here has been globalized, to our detriment.

Ambiguity of International students programs makes abuse likely, with serious consequences

Amarante admitted he was paid between $500 and $1000 for the 777 false work experience documents he created and had paid employers, some who were friends, some from referrals and others he approached on the street. This exposed “student” scandal further compromises our GSM (“general skilled migration”) program.

Of the 375 visa applications lodged under Amarante's false documents, 34 were granted permanent or temporary visas, 67 were refused, 217 remain pending and 57 were withdrawn.

Students coming to Australia should be interested in education, not residence in Australia. Learning and qualifications should be the motive, not living in Australian. Mixing immigration and education leaves this scheme open for corruption and distortion. It assumes that we have insufficient job applicants and ignores our population growth, our youth unemployment and underemployment levels, and displaces more further Australians from housing.

Notes

[1] Jamie Berry, (2003-09-12)."Student believed Monash killings were 'his destiny,'" The Age.

[2] Jamie Berry, "Student 'hosed' room with bullets, court told,"The Age, September 13, 2003.

Post-script - G, motivated by her estranged mother, wants to "sue" the people her helped her for "emotional abuse" (trying to get rent payments from her) and "kidnapping" (after admitting being suicidal to the local GP and taking her to hospital) in order to acquire funds to pay her fees and stay in Australia!