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July 31, 2009
ABC Fora- Khalid Koser: Why migrant smuggling pays
75 million climate refugees – and they don’t want to come to Australia
The ABC Frontline program reported this week that climate change could produce 75 million refugees in the Asia Pacific region in the next 40 years. 2. 75 million to flee climate change: report
The island nations of the Asia Pacific are in the front line of climate change –the Torres Strait and Pacific Island nations Tuvalu, Micronesia and Kiribati.
Aid agency Oxfam Australia and think-tank the Australia Institute are calling on Australia as the region’s richest country and one of the world’s biggest polluters to make deep cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions right now.
Andrew Bartlett reports on a forum on the issue held this week in his Crikey blog The Frontline of Climate change: Pacific Island peoples
Andrew says that the staple diet of fish, coconuts and bananas are all under threat from climate change.
But they don’t want to be refugees.
Ms Marstella Jack, the former Attorney-General of the Federated States of Micronesia, emphasised that her people don’t want to leave their islands, but they may not have any choice.
July 30, 2009
Immigration Minister signals change to permanent residency for students
Immigration Minister Chris Evans has said that there was “no automatic link” between study in Australia and access to permanent residency, the Australian reported yesterday. Immigration link in doubt
“The Australian government will adjust the (migration) program to meet our national needs and not be driven by the education choices of overseas students,” Evans said in a speech in New Delhi.
The Australian takes this as an indication that the link between study in Australia and permanent residency, introduced by the Howard government, may be decoupled.
It is the hope of permanent residency that has meant that overseas students are taking any courses in skills that the government has signalled as needed in the job market, and in turn this has led to some shonky ‘training’ courses and various forms of cheating obtain qualifications at any cost. Holy cash cows tell of rorts of foreign students
An article in today’s Australian warns of negative consequences if Evans goes ahead:
“… it’s an idea already causing tensions in education circles: our export education industry is bolstered by the carrot of the right of abode, and colleges could collapse from lack of students if they have to recruit on course offerings alone. The problem also affects universities: they may not blatantly advertise the migration bonus of their courses but earning points plays a part in enrolment decisions.” Aspiring immigrants
Yet another Australian article reports that the Indian student market is already collapsing, with
“…the recruitment body IDP Education Australia reporting an 80 per cent fall in appointments by students at its 14 Indian offices.”
The fall is attributed to fall-out from a spate of assaults on Indian students and revelations that students are being exploited by unscrupulous private colleges and fraudulent agents. Indian student market collapsing
July 29, 2009
Indian women liberated by passing English test
The blogger at Faint Voice tells us that there is ‘a quiet revolution in the status of women in deep rural, backward caste and poor Punjab. Girls who in past were not sent to school would now look forward to getting preference over boys in being sent to school, given time off to house work to study and even in getting precedence in meal times.’
And Australia can take credit!
No, not another aid program – this time it is the IELTS (International English Language Test System) that is transforming lives of these women.
“While before the IELTS became the goal the lives of these girls was quite one of being second class citizens to the boys in the family.”
A good level of English as tested by the IELTS is the key to almost every Australian visa (except humanitarian and family visas).
And once you have a work or study visa, you are on the path to the prize of Permanent Residency.
Faint Voice says “the goal of citizenship pushes the youth out of rural India, at least in Punjab and Haryana, and they have been very enthusiastic in making it to Canada and UK. Australia is only recently emerging as a favourite”.
What has changed in the case of Australia is the vigorousness with which Australia has sought students and their fees. Study in Australia: “a recognised immigration racket”
July 28, 2009
Holy cash cows tell of rorts of foreign students
The Australian Council for Private Education and Training yesterday unveiled a register of overseas education agents working for private vocational colleges. Agent register set up to fight foreign student rorts
This was on the same day that Four Corners aired Holy Cash Cows, an expose of the rorts in the enormous foreign student business in Australia, worth $15 billion.
Four Corners says that it has evidence that serious allegations have been made to government departments for some time, with no result or, worse still, the students subsequently found themselves under investigation:
“I mean for years I have been writing about dodgy education providers in Sydney and nobody cares… there’s certainly been enough complaints lodged that the problems have been there. There’s no doubt.” – Corruption investigator
“For some time now the Federal Government has boasted about the growth in the foreign education sector. But some experts now believe the time has come for the government to stop the corruption. The question is: does it have the will?”
A few hours before the Four Corners segment was aired, the offices of Migration Agent Mr Sanjay Deshwal were searched in a joint operation conducted by the Australian Federal Police, Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Australian police target exploitation of Indian students
Let’s keep watch.
July 27, 2009
Imposters. Secret documents. That’s the Australian visa business
Staff of Australia’s largest international student service, IDP Australia, are being investigated for possible corruption, after some students in were caught cheating on English exams.
Erik Jensen of the Sydney Morning Herald writes-
“A source in the Sydney Indian community said education agents had been selling copies of the May International English Language Testings System exam for between $12,000 and $18,000.
“He said advance copies of the exam had come from inside IDP Australia, a company owned by 38 Australian universities in partnership with the job site Seek, and were being sold throughout Sydney.
The Department of Immigration relies on IDP Australia for English testing.
IDP has confirmed that several students have been caught defrauding the system, and the that an investigation was under way to determine whether staff inside the service had been involved.
“Cheating in IELTS tests is not commonplace,” a spokeswoman for IDP Australia said. “However, given the high stakes involved, attempts to cheat or engage in other fraudulent activity such as identity fraud do occur.
“Recently in Australia, a small number of test takers have been detected in their attempt to cheat in the IELTS test. Whether or not it was an internal problem, we don’t know.”
The Aussie Possie recently reprinted a report from the Punjabi Tribune that claimed impersonation and document fraud among people sitting for the IELTS exam there. Punjabi marriage proposal: “I love your English!”
The Immigration department has recently raised its standard of English for work visas, from “a partial command” to “competent” English.
The Herald article reports that Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Evans is in India “dealing with the fallout over recent violence against Indian students and the uncovering of large-scale document fraud and economic slavery inside the $15 billion international education industry.” Cheating alleged in immigration exams
July 26, 2009
Potoroos love asylum seekers
An oldie, but a goodie
Happy Sunday Funday!
(There hasn’t been much news of asylum seekers in the last week – I hope no news is good news. Enjoy!)
July 24, 2009
Whole lives lost in shoddy, degrading refugee camps
Many refugees spend an entire lifetime in a refugee camp.
The recently released World Refugee Survey shows that millions of refugees spend anywhere from 10 to 60 years in
“shoddy, degrading refugee camps, where they are unable to move freely, work to support their families, or live anything resembling a normal life.
“In some cases children are born, live, and die in a refugee camp.
8,177,800 refugees have been in refugee camps for 10 years or more.
These camps are generally in very poor countries.
Nations with per capita income of less than $2,000 host half of all the refugees in the world.
Médecins Sans Frontières’ will set up a 1000 square-metre replica camp in Adelaide’s Victoria Square from Sunday 20 to Sunday 27 September 2009, 9am to 5pm daily, to give people the chance to walk into a camp site modelled on refugee camps in countries such as Chad and Sudan.
Experienced field staff will be on-hand at the camp to lead the guided tours and tell their stories about refugee camp life and the vulnerability of life for people who have fled their homes.
Field staff will also be available to talk to people interested in working for Médecins Sans Frontières at information nights held in Adelaide on Wednesday 23 September and in Melbourne on Thursday 15 October.
July 23, 2009
July 22, 2009
Why are there so many boat people coming to Australia?
Why is there a surge in numbers of Afghan asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters?
* 2008 was the most violent year in Afghanistan since 2001
Civilian casualties resulted from the actions of both anti-Government and pro-Government elements, roughly evenly split.
The pattern of deliberate attacks on civilians by /Taleban /forces, summary executions, massacres, the deliberate and systematic destruction of livelihoods through a “scorched earth” policy, and forcible relocation are widely reported.
* One out of every four refugees in the world today is from Afghanistan
* Civilian casualties have increased by 40% on last year
* Afghans have fled to 69 different countries –2.6 million are in Pakistan and Iran
* The top 15 destination countries of Afghan asylum-seekers in 2008 recorded an increase in numbers
United Kingdom (3,700 claims),
Turkey (2,600)
Greece (2,300)
Italy (2,000)
Tajikistan (1360)
In South-East Asia, 1,617 Afghan asylum-seekers arrived in 2008, compared to 900 in 2007. They arrived in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and now Australia.
Thanks to Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for alerting the Aussie Possie to this information, from the UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Afghanistan July 2009
