Senior Liberal headlines event for student visa agents before tanking migration bill

Coalition frontbencher Sarah Henderson headlined an event for migration agents and private colleges and launched a new brand for a Liberal Party member who helps international students extend stays in Australia just a month before tanking Labor’s bill to crack down on the private education sector.

Henderson, who leads the opposition’s education policy, spoke at the private forum attended by dozens of colleges and agents – some of whom have had restrictions imposed on them by the tertiary education regulator or helped international students appeal their visa rejections – as the Coalition was blasting the number of students exploiting Australia’s visa system to stay in the country.

Some of the companies are also Liberal Party donors.

Coalition frontbencher Sarah Henderson and a post from the company that organised the event.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/Supplied

The company that hosted the event, Apply 4 Study Australia, has posts on Facebook telling students to “call us now” if their visa was expiring soon, and online testimonials praise it for helping people extend or change visas after their degrees. Another agent at the event posts about “hassle-free processes” for recent graduates to “stay and work in Australia” – practices that the Coalition has hit out at.

The Coalition this week torpedoed Labor’s high-profile student caps bill. While sandstone universities were up in arms over the changes, vocational education providers were due to suffer the deepest cuts to student numbers. The new laws would have also launched a huge crackdown on private providers and agents bringing thousands of people into the country on student visas.

An online advertisement for Apply 4 Study Australia, the host of the event Sarah Henderson attended.Credit: Facebook

The bill sought to stop education providers from operating firms that procure visas and required them to demonstrate a track record of quality education before they could recruit foreign students. It would have barred agents from receiving commissions when international students move between private providers.

Education Minister Jason Clare, in question time on Wednesday, said it dealt with the “shonks and crooks who feed off our international education system”.

“This is what the Liberal Party is going to vote against. I wonder why?”

Henderson said in response to questions from this masthead that she had engaged with “literally hundreds of stakeholders through the Senate inquiry process on Labor’s chaotic and confused student caps bill”.

“The event I attended in Sydney was not a political fundraiser. It was part of my consultation on this bill,” she said. “The Coalition makes no apology for opposing Labor’s student cap legislation because it will fail to fix the migration and housing crisis of the government’s own making.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was forced to defend himself against Labor claims he was soft on migration after blocking the bill this week. Several shadow ministers and backbenchers said there was frustration in the party room about how the Coalition reached the position, with some left confused about how to articulate it publicly.

A month before blocking the laws, on October 11, Henderson headlined an event at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel to discuss Labor’s bill alongside former immigration minister Alex Hawke and Coalition MP Simon Kennedy.

Hawke told this masthead: “The policy event in Sydney was not a fundraising event. No donations were requested or received.”

The event’s host, Apply 4 Study Australia, manages the visa process for people who want to study in Australia.

The company’s chief executive, GD Singh, has been secretary of the Rouse Hill Liberal election council in Hawke’s electorate, according to his social media posts, while the company was also listed as a sponsor for the Liberal Party’s 2022 federal budget dinner. Henderson and Hawke unveiled the logo for Singh’s new brand, called Edu Talks, at last month’s event. Apply 4 Study Australia was contacted for comment.

The revelations come as Dutton and senior Coalition frontbenchers have blasted Labor for failing to control how international students move through the visa system. Dutton has also called overstaying students “the modern version of boat arrivals” as the fight over the international student intake escalates ahead of next year’s election.

But migration and education agents who facilitate student visa extensions had the ear of Henderson at the event.

An online advertisement for Aussizz, which attended the event Sarah Henderson spoke at.Credit: Facebook

Aussizz group, a migration agency that attended, regularly promotes on social media its successful efforts to get visas for international students who have finished studying and want to extend stays in Australia.

According to its posts, Aussizz has helped secure temporary graduate visas for people after their study – a visa class that has doubled in the past two years – and guided others to successfully appeal their student visa refusals at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Both practices were singled out by Coalition frontbencher Jane Hume on Tuesday as elements of the migration program that have gotten out of hand.

“The root cause is problems with the visa system,” Hume said on ABC’s Radio National. “There’s around 113,000 that are on bridging visas, waiting student visa decisions. There are 228,000 that are temporary graduate visa holders.”

A spokesperson for Aussizz said it had not lobbied against the Labor bill. “We participated in the VET forum to engage in constructive discussions and provide insights ... We have not made donations to any political party, including the Liberal Party.”

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