As tourism explodes, visa due diligence is key

The Department of Home Affairs must balance granting visitor visas and limit the misuse of this program to bypass offshore visa application processes, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

MOST VISITOR VISAS are designed to enable a short visit of three months or less, primarily for tourism, business or family visit purposes. While rapid processing is a key goal, high levels of visitors extending stay after arrival are now a major contributor to current record net migration, now approaching 500,000. This works against the rapid processing goal.

In 2022, visitors extending stay after arrival for more than 12 months contributed around 18% (69,430) to the then record net migration level of 386,970. This was much higher than, for example, permanent migrants who only contributed 14% (53,430). The biggest contribution was from overseas students at 57%.

The all-time record contribution of visitors to net migration was in 2019 at 100,280 or an astonishing 40% of net migration, some of this would have been the effect of international border closures although the contribution of visitors to net migration was trending up well before the pandemic. It was 60,810 or 24% in 2018.

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A high contribution of visitors to net migration generally reflects a visa system that is not operating efficiently or is being undermined by people trying to bypass the proper offshore visa processes (often assisted by migration agents or lawyers, whether registered or unregistered).

In 2022-2023, visitor visa applications and grants increased steadily, backlogs were cleared, processing times improved but grant rates fell significantly. This is likely a response by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to rising concerns with the integrity of the visitor visa program, especially after the labour trafficking scam from 2015 until the pandemic and the rise in visitors extending stay long-term after arrival.

If the Government is to get net migration down to the long-term assumption of 235,000 per annum (assumed by Treasury under both major parties but not viewed as a target), management of visitor visas will be one area where policy will need to be tightened noting that overall visitor applications and grants in 2022-2023 were still well below pre-pandemic levels

Table 1: Visitor applications lodged by nationality

	17-18	18-19	19-20	20-21	21-22	22-23
India	291,138	338,040	292,809	36,390	263,213	463,702
UK	635,200	595,707	489,622	13,955	158,601	463,405
USA	566,245	623,224	457,949	6,906	99,864	459,354
China	1,047,631	1,009,516	611,495	35,593	54,670	330,178
Singapore	238,753	236,015	156,089	4,604	96,979	220,678
South Korea	280,242	276,048	193,498	4,829	25,417	172,871
Malaysia	333,570	341,786	220,970	3,403	60,983	166,189
Japan	397,374	410,265	319,328	5,893	17,073	158,053
Vietnam	NA	NA	66,861	6,818	37,807	135,051
Philippines	106,773	119,978	92,873	9,525	49,456	117,595
Germany	178,306	179,567	141,486	2,407	31,997	116,973
Indonesia	114,419	122,349	80,913	2,533	48,434	116,958
Others	1,694,813	1,713,205	1,243.753	51,492	421,357	1,234,020
Total	5,884,464	5,965,700	4,367,646	184,648	1,365,851	4,155,117

Visitor applications lodged in 2022-23 were almost two million below the record year of 2018-19. Source nationalities that were still below their pre-pandemic levels included China, UK, USA, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and Germany.

These will rise again in 2023-2024, especially from China as group tours under the Approved Destination Status scheme resume with the thawing of the Australia-China relationship. India and Vietnam were the only major source nations with visitor applications well above their pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23.

Table 2: Visitor visa grants by nationality

	17-18	18-19	19-20	20-21	21-22	22-23
India	268,194	280,344	222,785	29,502	200,325	357,038
UK	630,761	591,171	479,662	9,029	160,841	460,157
USA	564,874	621,954	455,029	6,323	97,628	456,565
China	954,264	938,136	544,817	38,844	44,348	271,550
Singapore	238,333	236,526	154,285	5,614	95,829	219,986
Sth Korea	279,329	276,798	189,910	7,388	24,912	172,648
Malaysia	332,224	337,481	213,531	3,622	39,960	147,838
Japan	397,242	410,259	317,479	7,200	16,953	157,809
Vietnam	NA	NA	56,001	6,124	25,167	113,592
Philippines	96,851	107,091	73,726	9,069	28,187	114,242
Germany	177,336	178,626	139,411	NA	32,662	116,444
Indonesia	106,747	112,762	72,337	2,592	32,106	116,912
Others	1,593,012	1,595,179	1,193,631	42,269	375,261	1,113,714
Total	5,639,167	5,686,318	4,056,603	167,576	1,131,890	3,818,495

In terms of visa grants, the UK, USA, China, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Germany were well below their pre-pandemic peaks. On the other hand, India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia were above their pre-pandemic peaks. Grant rates for visitor applications overall fell significantly from 85.3% in June quarter of 2022 to 74.3% in June quarter of 2023.

Table 3: Visitor Visa Grant Rates

	June Quarter 2022	June Quarter 2023
India	86.5%	68.4%
China	81.1%	77.9%
Vietnam	89.8%	77.2%
Indonesia	93.4%	83.9%
Philippines	87.2%	79.9%
Thailand	65.7%	59.8%
Nepal	83.3%	75.4%
USA	95.3%	92.7%
Sri Lanka	77.3%	82.2%
South Africa	92.0%	91.7%
Brazil	94.1%	85.8%
Mongolia	61.9%	55.0%
Fiji	83.1%	66.3%
Pakistan	57.9%	37.3%
Bangladesh	88.5%	57.3%
Other	83.0%	73.5%
Total	85.3%	74.3%

This may well be a response to the high rate at which visitors were extending stay after arrival noting that visitors from most nations are assessed against the ‘genuine visit’ requirement.

Unfortunately, the Government does not publish data on the different types of visas visitors are accessing after arrival and the process for accessing this data via freedom of information is both costly and slow.

The visas visitors could potentially access after arrival include:

Student visas, particularly to avoid the level of scrutiny applied to student visa applicants offshore;
Working holiday maker visas;
Temporary work visas;
Permanent visas; or
Asylum.

Restoring visa integrity an essential political operation

Restoring integrity in our problematic visa system will be a difficult process, but a necessary one in order to win back the public's confidence.

It is notable that some of the countries with the largest increase in refusal rates are also those with high rates of unmeritorious asylum applications including India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Fiji. Unfortunately, DHA has not published data for Malaysia as well a range of other Pacific Island nations which have also been major contributors to unmeritorious asylum applications.

Going forward, DHA will need to find a balance between facilitating rapid entry of genuine visitors while limiting the extent to which the visitor visa program is used to bypass offshore applications for the appropriate visa and thus contribute to a high level of net migration.

Excessive tightening would lead to a backlash from the tourism industry, business lobby groups and migrant communities wanting their families to visit.

A tricky balancing act.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an IA columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.