The Go8 lobby group has created a straw man argument over a new Ministerial Direction to limit their previously privileged order of processing over regional universities.
To much fanfare, the Government has issued a new Ministerial Direction 111 on student visa processing to replace the previous Ministerial Direction 107. So what effect will it have and why is the Group of Eight (Go8) leading universities lobby group complaining so loudly?
The DHA media release on this is HERE.
It puts the new Direction in the context of the Government’s objectives for overseas students of 'equality, quality, integrity and sustainability', although it doesn’t explain how the Direction 111 furthers those objectives other than to process visa applications for regional universities on par with Go8 universities. That would explain the emergence of the "equality" objective.
The Direction 111 was announced the day after the net migration forecast was increased in MYEFO. The Government may have been trying to create the impression that the new Direction will restrict numbers or the timing may have been purely coincidental — we may never know.
In itself, the new Direction won’t restrict numbers at all. It is solely about the order of processing. Legally, that is all it can be.
Not surprisingly, regional universities have expressed much satisfaction with the Direction 111, while the Go8 universities are unhappy to be put on the same level in the order of processing as regional universities.
Of course, the Go8 lobby group has not expressed its dissatisfaction that way as it would not want to publicly argue it should be allowed to retain its previously privileged order of processing position over regional universities.
Instead, in this media release on the new Direction, the Go8 lobby group makes a number of other baseless allegations.
The Go8 says the new Direction will result in a ‘slowdown in processing’, without providing a skerrick of evidence to support that claim.
The Direction is about the order of processing. The speed of processing is a completely separate matter and solely a function of the level of resources devoted to visa processing, and the size and risk composition of the caseload. Not once does the Go8 lobby group mention either of these factors in their media release.
The Go8 lobby group goes on to say:
... it makes no sense that prompt Government support in processing visas will only apply to 80% of that target ... Despite there being no legislative basis for setting international student numbers, our universities have set budgets based on a number provided to them by Government several months ago. Now, with just days before the end of the year, and with little apparent rationale, this number has shifted again. In effect, this is a backdoor to caps for all the wrong reasons, it fails to address the structural funding issues our universities face and will lead to even greater confusion for our international students.
The fact is there is no cap on student numbers, de jure or de facto.
The Direction explicitly states that:
... the existence of prioritisation of the offshore caseload in line with the 2025 indicative allocations of new student commencements is not to be taken as a limit to or cap on the total number of visas that may be granted to any provider. It is a number used solely for the purposes of determining the number of visa applications that are able to be processed with Priority 1 – High processing, before standard processing procedures in accordance with Priority 2 – Standard becomes applicable.
So, let’s look at what the Direction 111 will actually do.
All visa caseloads must have an order of processing, as not all visa applications in a large caseload can be processed simultaneously. Even where there is no ministerial direction on the order of visa processing, the staff in charge must establish an order of processing to ensure the caseload is managed efficiently. There will always be some applications that are processed earlier, while others are processed later. That is simply the reality of how large visa caseloads are managed.
The key question is whether there will be sufficient resources to process all offshore student visa applications before the start of the academic year, including those that may result in some providers exceeding their indicative allocations.
Over the past ten months, offshore student visa applications have fallen by around 40% (see Chart 1, below) and are now broadly in line with pre-Covid records.
(Source: https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/student-visas)
The vast bulk of the decline in offshore student applications has been from high-risk providers (particularly private VET providers) and high-risk source nations. That has been a function of both policy tightening (some good, some bad) after the Coalition Government stomped on the student visa policy accelerator at the end of Covid as well as a major increase in refusal rates for higher risk providers implemented by the Labor Government.
The resulting decline in offshore applications from high-risk providers has enabled a gradual increase in the average approval rate. It makes caseload management easier.
Offshore applications from Go8 universities, which heavily focus their recruitment from China, have remained relatively strong throughout (see below, Chart 2) with a very high visa approval rate (well over 90%). That is due to Go8 universities being rated low risk irrespective of whether that is merited or not.
Unless there is a dramatic and major increase in offshore student applications, the offshore student visa processing function in the period November 2024 to January 2024 is looking at managing a caseload that is around 40% smaller and one with a much higher proportion of applications from low-risk providers. It takes much fewer resources to manage applications from low-risk providers.
As is always the case, the Department will redirect resources from other visa caseloads to student visa processing during the November-January period.
The combination of these factors should mean that all offshore student applications are decided before the start of the academic year. If there is a much bigger than expected surge in offshore student applications in November-January, the Department will need to switch more resources to student visa processing. Once visa grants for most providers have reached 80% of their indicative allocation, applications in excess of the 80% will start to be processed, most likely from around mid-January. Note that no provider will be limited to its indicative allocation as that would be beyond the power.
It is possible there may be a tiny minority of applications that cannot be processed before the start of the academic year. That would mostly affect applications from high-risk providers where either key documents were missing or fraud had been detected. It often takes more time to investigate such fraud before an application can be decided.
The key challenge for the Department will be if there is an unexpectedly large surge in offshore applications. That would be a problem irrespective of the order of processing.
New Ministerial Direction 111 is not a solution to the challenge of developing a long-term approach to managing the industry in a manner that does indeed enable sustainable growth, or addresses the issues of quality, certainty and integrity. That is where the Go8 lobby group should be focusing its efforts not on issuing inane and nonsensical media releases.
Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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