The Department of Home Affairs has released temporary visa data for the June quarter of 2024, which showed that there were 2,353,000 temporary visa holders in Australia, excluding visitors, at the end of 2023–04:
This represented an all-time record for June and an increase of 220,000 on 2022–23 levels.
As illustrated below by Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro, June set a new record for temporary migration in seasonally adjusted terms:
To no one’s surprise, India has driven the boom in temporary migration since the beginning of the pandemic:
Turning to the individual visa classes, there were 608,300 student visas on issue at the end of 2023–04, a 39,500 increase on the prior year and a record high for June:
Graduate visas rose to a record high 216,500 in 2023–24, a 16,700 increase on the prior year and more than double the pre-covid level:
There were 313,800 temporary employment visas on issue in 2023–24, down marginally from the prior year:
Working holiday maker visas rose to a record high 173,200 in 2023–24, up 35,800 on the prior year:
Finally, there were 297,400 temporary bridging visas on issue in 2023–24, up 120,500 on the previous year:
The next chart from Justin Fabo plots the various temporary visa streams against each other in quarterly seasonally adjusted terms:
While student visas have passed their peak, they are being more than offset by surging bridging visas, driven in part by students seeking asylum.
Late last month, The AFR reported that the surge in bridging visas is being driven by rising student visa refusal rates for people who are already in Australia, which has driven a spike in appeals to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
In the year to May, there have been 15,374 appeals to the AAT, of which half – 7703 – are student visa related. That compares to 2022-23 when there were 9258 appeals in total and just 20 per cent – 1868 – were student visa related…
“This is likely to be the result of the removal of unrestricted work rights plus additional funding for immigration compliance work”, Abul Rizvi said.
“If the application rate remains around 3000 per month, the backlog will continue to grow strongly. That would undermine the government’s policy to reduce net migration”, he said.
The SMH View this month labelled the surge in students seeking asylum “perplexing” and “new territory”, with Abul Rizvi adding that asylum claims would continue to grow as a result of restrictions on visa-hopping and the Albanese government’s caps on student visas.
“The uptick in asylum seekers who obtain visas to enter Australia under the guise of studying feeds concerns the overall system is ripe for rorting”, noted The SMH View.
Thus, rejected student visa applicants are switching to bridging visas and extending their stays in Australia. And this is undermining the federal government’s crackdown against spurious student visas by clogging up the appeals process.
