After more than a year of negative publicity over ‘racist’ attacks on Indian ‘students’ in Australia, the government has taken a step towards partially shutting an immigration backdoor that many Indians were abusing, and which was at the root of the attacks.
On Monday, the Australian government said it would scale back 20,000 low-skilled migrant applications and look to attract more high-skilled immigrants. On the face of it, ‘students’ from small-town India — who account for a substantial proportion of low-skilled immigrants to Australia — are the losers.
But the issue is more complex. As a DNA investigation (June 2009) established, the tens of thousands of Indians who fork out huge amounts to ‘study’ in Australia are cogs in a machinery that imports cheap blue collar labour into Australia under the guise of providing education to overseas students, without entitlement rights.
Often, the only enticement for ‘students’ is a shot at ‘permanent residence’ in Australia, after they complete the programme (subject to other conditions). In pursuit of that PR dream, Indian ‘students’, with help from education agents and immigration touts (in India and Australia), faked qualification requirements, breached immigration laws — and signed on for vocational stream courses — such as ‘haircare’ and ‘commercial cookery’ — that feed a list of “migrant occupations in demand” in Australia.
“The vocational training sector has become an integral part of the migration business,” notes Dr Bob Birrell, reader in sociology, Monash University. “For overseas students interested in permanent residence in Australia, cooking and hairdressing offer the cheapest and most accessible training opportunity, leading to trade qualifications needed for immigration.”
Having paid an arm and a leg to secure a seat on a vocational stream course, most Indian ‘students’ take up jobs as storefront clerks, taxi drivers or in the hospitality industry — to recoup ‘investments’. As they return from work late at night to their suburban, low-income neighbourhood homes taking crime-infested public transport systems, they are vulnerable to crime — to a statistically disproportionate extent, which fed the narrative that these were ‘racist’ attacks.
Given the escalation in emotions in India, which required diplomatic intervention from the Indian government, the issue was placing strains on India’s relations with Australia. From the Australian perspective, it was tarnishing the image of that country as a safe place for overseas education — and damaging the brand value of the $15 billion education exports industry.
The Australian government’s move is aimed at gradually shutting a window of immigration opportunity that was being abused by (among others) Indian ‘students’ with an eye on gaining permanent residence there. The gradual reduction in number of Indians making the crossing under false pretenses — and putting their lives at risk — should lead to a reduction in incidents of ‘racial’ attacks.
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