Australia to Widen Pathway for International Students to Gain Permanent Residency

Students walk around Sydney University in Sydney, Australia, on April 6, 2016. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

The Australian government will relax some restrictions on international students making it easier for them to come and settle down permanently.

The federal Labor government will scrap a rule that automatically fails a potential international student if they express an intention to settle down in Australia in the long term in their visa application.

The change will apply to the new Genuine Student Test (GST), which aims to eliminate visa applicants who want to come to the country to work instead of studying.

The GST is a comprehensive assessment that examines the eligibility and true intention of a person who applies for an Australian student visa and is meant to replace the current Genuine Temporary Entrant requirement.

Under the current system, an applicant needs to demonstrate that he or she has a strong incentive to return home after completing their studies (for example, evidence of financial, family, or social ties).

The GST is expected to come into effect in early 2024.

Former Deputy Secretary of the then-Immigration Department, Abul Rizvi, said it did not make sense for the Home Affairs Department to enforce the current rules as Australia was already providing pathways for international students to gain permanent residency.

“Why are we pretending otherwise?” he asked, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald. “I actually think the government should go further and say one of the primary objectives of the international student program is to recruit future Australians because that’s what it does. Why not just say it?”

Migration System Reform

The change to the GST comes as the Labor government is implementing a major reform to the migration system.

In December 2023, Labor introduced an ambitious 10-year migration strategy to fix what it called a “broken” migration system left by the former Coalition government.

Among the measures in the plan, the government will target student visa holders who prolong their stay in Australia without a clear pathway to permanent residency.

The government is also hoping the move can partly bring migration down to more “sustainable” levels. It will also raise the minimum English language requirements for student and graduate visas.

In addition, the government will apply greater scrutiny to student visa applications from high-risk providers and strengthen requirements for international education providers.

According to Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil, migration was expected to drop to about 250,000 by 2025 with the new strategy, which was less than half of the record level of 518,000 in 2023.

Meanwhile, Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan did not believe that the Labor government would be able to curb migration.

“Labor won’t even promise to reduce the record migration levels, and even if they did, no Australian could believe them after they broke their promise on stage three tax cuts,” he told Sky News.

“The horse has already bolted. Labor always makes a mess out of immigration.”