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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Howard's govt blamed for lax immigrationSubscribe From: kojakbt89 Feb-8 11:08 pm To: ALL (1 of 2) 28353.1 Feb 9, 2010

Australia tightens immigration policy

20,000 applications axed as Canberra seeks to woo more professionals

CANBERRA: Australia has tightened its migration rules in favour of English speakers and professionals, saying that the country has been attracting too many hairdressers and cooks, and too few doctors and engineers.
Some 20,000 applications were axed as part of a major overhaul, and Immigration Minister Chris Evans said application fees totalling A$14 million (S$17.2 million) would be refunded.
The changes follow a similar tightening in Britain, where tougher visa rules have been announced to stop people from entering on student visas and taking short courses, then opting to stay on in the country.
Mr Evans blamed the over-representation of lower skilled immigrants on a system put in place by then Prime Minister John Howard, whose government lost power in 2007.
'The current points test puts an overseas student with a short-term vocational qualification gained in Australia ahead of a Harvard-educated environmental scientist,' he said.
The new rules will favour applicants who already have job offers over those who merely have qualifications or who are studying.
The measures are expected to dampen enrolment in Australian colleges by foreign students hoping to settle in the country.
Foreign student numbers in Australian colleges exploded in 2001, when the government changed migration rules to allow them to apply for permanent residency while studying.
Until then, skilled workers had to apply offshore for visas to fill jobs from a list of more than 100 trades and professions suffering shortages in Australia.
'We had tens of thousands of students studying cookery and accounting and hairdressing because that was on the list and that got them through to permanent residency,' Mr Evans told Australian radio yesterday.
'We want to make sure we are getting the high-end applicants.'
Australia's mining sector, where major companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have been expanding to meet China's growing demand for resources, welcomed the government's move.
It said it needs tens of thousands of skilled workers to meet the demands of new projects.
'We need the people on the job now, and the demand going forward will be even greater as these projects get off the ground,' Australian Mines and Metals Association chief executive Steve Knott said.
The new policy will favour applicants who score highly in an English language test. Moreover, immigrant numbers in certain jobs could be capped for the first time. The government has not identified which jobs.
Foreign students enrolled in courses for professions that are cut from the list will be given 18 months after graduation to find work in their field.
Mr Evans conceded that the new rules would cost the education sector, which has grown rapidly into Australia's fourth largest export industry and reaps A$12 billion a year from foreign student fees. But he said high-quality universities would continue to prosper.
Monash University social scientist Andrew Markus, an expert on migration policy, said student enrolments would fall because more than 70 per cent of foreign students in Australia planned to settle in the country permanently.
Foreign student numbers in Australia had gone from 150,000 in 2002 to almost 400,000 last year, with India overtaking China recently as the largest source of applicants.
Indians accounted for almost one in four foreign students in Australia last year, but Australian universities expect enrolments to fall 30 per cent this year because of a spate of crimes against Indians.
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