Go8 boss Vicki Thomson lauds ‘genuine student test’ visa reform as skilled labour solution

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson says reforms to the student visa application process will help to fill critical workforce shortages.

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson. Picture: Nikki Short

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson says reforms to the student visa application process so it no longer penalises students who reveal they want to migrate to Australia will help to fill critical workforce shortages.

Ms Thomson said the Albanese government’s planned change from the Genuine Temporary Entrant requirement to a Genuine Student Test, revealed in The Australian, paving the path for more arrivals to migrate, “makes good sense in principle”.

Under the current requirement international students must submit a 300-word statement outlining their study plans to prove they are a “genuine temporary entrant”, and applications that explicitly state they want to stay in Australia are thrown out.

The decision to repeal this criteria comes amid a push from Labor to prioritise permanent over temporary migration and encourage high-value migrants to settle in Australia to fill skills shortages.

“Australia is facing a serious skills shortage in areas where we have a large proportion of international students such as engineering and information technology,” Ms Thomson said. “The Genuine Temporary Entrant requirement is out of step with Australia’s current skills needs. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of the opportunity to retain young people who have actively sought to come here and completed degrees under an Australian system?”

Ms Thomson said the nation needed a supply of migrants to combat population decline and fill gaps in vital sectors, with the government’s Intergenerational Report due to be released on Thursday highlighting that workers would increasingly shoulder a higher tax burden into the future.

International students Leesa Zulkefli, left, Alina Lin and Natsaran Ang at the University of Sydney. Picture: Jane Dempster

“The Intergenerational Report … will confirm what we already know; population growth is slowing, and our population is ageing,” she said. “Productivity growth will be important … innovation fuelled by high-quality research and a skilled workforce will be crucial. Go8 universities attract some of the world’s best and brightest, and it makes sense to capitalise on this talent base.”

Huatong International vice-president and former International Student Education Agents Association chair Mark Lucas said the system’s aversion to students who want to migrate was so extreme agents discouraged them from mentioning they had a relative in the city of their studies. “But if we don’t have skilled migration, effectively the whole economy is in trouble,” he said.

However, opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said the student visa was already a “shambles”.

“The Albanese government’s change to visa requirements opens the door to more migration agents and overseas students rorting the system,” she said.