Does Australia have an illegal migrant problem, or do we have a compassion problem? Editor Michelle Pini discusses the tragic death of a young "non-resident" as One Nation dogwhistling intensifies.
IN DECEMBER, a young person died on the streets of Sydney’s CBD — his lifeless body unnoticed for six days. It is as though he were invisible, largely unseen even before his untimely death. He died alone.
You see, 32-year-old Bikram Lama, an international student from Nepal, was a “non-resident”. He was homeless when he died, the cause of his death still to be determined.
As a “non-resident”, Bikram was not entitled to social housing (or temporary housing), Centrelink, healthcare or any other support. Such things are reserved only for Australian citizens. Employment for non-residents is also restricted, with most only permitted to work less than 48 hours per fortnight.
In Australia, “non-residents” are undocumented people, asylum seekers, New Zealand citizens (who arrived after 2001) and temporary visa holders — many of these, international students, like Bikram.
This is not an isolated situation. According to the City of Sydney, one in five homeless people is a non-resident of Australia. The situation is similar in other major Australian cities.
So when Pauline Hanson and her One Nation racist band speak about “illegal” migrants and try to blame all the woes of the disgruntled on them, these are the people they are vilifying. People like Bikram Lama. People who have, in fact, paid handsomely to come here. People who have done nothing wrong. People who are dying on the streets of wealthy, well-heeled politicians like Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce, and the media moguls and miners who fund these politicians and their hatred, such as Gina Rinehart.
Australian universities are now serious, money-making businesses. They run effective international campaigns to recruit overseas students, who pay more than Australian citizens to study here.
The cost of studying in Australia for international students is estimated at between $45,000 and $95,000 per annum.
According to a Reserve Bank report, international students contribute over $50 billion to the economy annually.
One Nation’s immigration policies, however, aim to:
Deport 75,000 illegal migrants ... because ...
...Visa overstayers, illegal workers, and unlawful non-residents undermine national security, drive down wages, and take advantage of public services meant for Australians.
One Nation also aspires to:
‘End the student visa loopholes that turn study into a backdoor to permanent residency or low-wage labour.’
Like most One Nation rhetoric, the facts do not support its claims that temporary visa holders – students or others – are gouging our economy or rorting our support systems.
The reality is that many are not wealthy and must go to extreme lengths to be educated here. Bikram’s family struggled financially and had to sell a portion of their farmland in their remote village, south of Kathmandu, to send him to Australia to study computer science, in the hope of a better future.
Indeed, if anyone is being rorted, it is temporary residents who pay exorbitant fees to study here and are then left to their own devices – without a support system in sight – when they are unable to sustain life here and are also unable to return home.
Bikram fell into hardship and failed to renew his passport, and as his life and hopes of a better future spiralled into homelessness, he lost contact with his family.
According to an ABC report:
‘…it wasn't until the Nepali embassy contacted Bikram's family to identify his body, which had decomposed so badly that DNA samples, dental records and fingerprints were requested, that they had any sense of what his life had become.’
But this is not only about Bikram Lama — devastating though his story is. And it’s not just about immigration — hot topic though it is, courtesy of a spike in global interest in so-called “populist” parties like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
Despite the baseless dog-whistling, in case it isn't enough to bring students here under the false pretence of a better life and then let them live and die on our streets when their money runs out, Hanson wants to:
'Introduce an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare, ensuring new arrivals contribute before they take.'
And finally, if we should occasionally find our hearts and take in people seeking asylum, One Nation wants to:
'Withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention because Australia will not be dictated to by foreign organisations when deciding who we accept into our nation on humanitarian grounds.'
This latter claim is perhaps the most ludicrous, since although party to the UN Refugee Convention, Australia has frequently violated it, most notably during the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison regime, which tortured refugees on Nauru and Manus Island for a decade.
Indeed, if Australians need a group of people towards which to direct our angst for the failings of our society, we need to look no further than demonstrably racist politicians like Hanson. Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which was prepared to sell off politicians to America's National Rifle Association (NRA) and whose chief of staff is a convicted criminal. One Nation, whose leader accepts private planes as gifts from billionaires and whose own salary jumped by $100,000 to $340,900 per annum after fellow rorter, Barnaby Joyce, defected to One Nation, making it an official “minor party”.
In return for their eye-watering salaries, this dogwhistling rabble continues to spread hate and division. It promises to help battlers, but instead, Hanson has voted against all of the following relief measures:
- raising JobSeeker;
- Disability Royal Commission reforms;
- increased childcare subsidies;
- paid family support;
- workplace protections;
- public school funding;
- TAFE and university funding;
- affordable housing measures;
- social housing; and (of course)
- any measures that may assist new arrivals.
This story is not only about Bikram Lama or other non-residents.
This is about our compassion, or lack of it. Many Australians are doing it tough. Inequality is soaring, both here and globally. While the Albanese Government is at least attempting to address some of these issues, there is still much work to be done. This is undeniable.
But if we are comfortable blaming our problems on the most vulnerable, if we are okay with allowing young people – who have already paid for the privilege to be here and who have much to contribute – to sleep on our streets, desperate and alone, and if we are happy to walk past them, even as they take their last breaths, the problem lies with us.
This editorial was originally published as part of the Independent Australia weekly newsletter. Subscribe to IA to access all our work from as little as $1.15 per week and help power our journalism throughout 2026.
Follow managing editor Michelle Pini on Twitter @vmp9 and Bluesky @michellepini.bsky.social, and Independent Australia on Twitter at @independentaus, Facebook HERE and Instagram HERE.
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“We are here to make sure Pauline Hanson knows that there are so many people in WA who reject her hate-filled & divisive brand” - her “Trump-style politics.” pic.twitter.com/DityiG1xCe
— stranger (@strangerous10) June 11, 2026
