Partner visa rules in reform call

Thousands of former overseas students in Australia are staying on by marrying ­locals, prompting calls for ­urgent reform of the partner visa system.

Thousands of former overseas students in Australia are staying on by marrying ­locals, prompting calls for ­urgent reform of the partner visa system.

A new report said that Australia was alone among Western nations with very generous rules as to who could sponsor foreign partners.

For example, an Australian resident who is just 18, unemployed, on a welfare benefit and still living at home is eligible to sponsor a spouse or partner. It is even open to migrants who very recently got their permanent residency in Australia, said the Australian Population Research Institute study.

Australian Population Research Institute director Dr Bob Birrell wants reform of the partner visa system.

Report author and institute head Dr Bob Birrell said it was extraordinary that about 40,000 partner visas — or one quarter of the total migration program — were issued last year, with another 79,000 ­applications in the queue.

“The scale of these numbers can be appreciated by comparing them with the total number of marriages contracted in Australia in 2017, which was 112,000,” he said.

Dr Birrell said that weak partner visa rules were being exploited by people here on temporary visas, especially overseas students, who otherwise would struggle to get permanent residency due to tougher skill visa rules.

In 2017-18, the biggest group of current or former foreign students to get partner visas were Chinese (1624), then Vietnamese (982), Thais (591), Indians (526) and UK citizens (336).

Students from Asia are marrying locals to stay in Australia.

Dr Birrell said a common mistaken view was that the partner visa category was dominated by people in relationships from overseas travel and work.

He said most visa recipients were either people here previously on temporary visas, or Australian residents “usually recently arrived and Asia-born” going home to choose a partner known to their family or community.

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“Since most partners locate in Sydney and Melbourne they add significantly to the migration burden in these two cities,” he said.

“Also, few have the job skills or English language capacity to thrive in the Australian job market.”

Dr Birrell called for a raft of measures to stop “gaming” of the system, such as banning onshore applications from those on temporary visas, including foreign students and visitors.

“Such persons could still be sponsored for a partner visa while the sponsored partner is offshore (but it) would save the taxpayer the millions of dollars currently spent in paying for the processing of appeals against Department of Home Affairs rulings,” he said.

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@JMasanauskas