There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Visa to Australia

There is a persistent idea in Australia that some migrants have had an easy pathway into the country.

Perhaps they came from the “right” country. Perhaps they were part of the Commonwealth. Perhaps they arrived as an international student and supposedly used education as an easy back door to permanent residency.

As someone who came to Australia from the United Kingdom, I can tell you that there was nothing easy, cheap or guaranteed about it.

I was not a £10 Pom. I did not receive a subsidised passage, a house on arrival or an automatic right to stay because I held a British passport. That assisted-passage scheme ended decades before I arrived.

Being from the UK did not give me a special entitlement to live in Australia. Nor does being from a Commonwealth country create a general shortcut through Australia’s visa system. The Commonwealth includes 56 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and the Pacific. It is not another name for Britain, and membership does not give citizens an automatic right to migrate to Australia.

I also need to acknowledge that I came to this process from a position of considerable privilege. I am white, a native English speaker and a citizen of the United Kingdom. I arrived with a teaching degree and could navigate an English-language education, employment and migration system without also confronting a language barrier.

Those advantages made many parts of my experience easier than they are for international students who face racism, language barriers, unfamiliar systems, less recognised qualifications or discrimination linked to their nationality. If the process was expensive, difficult and uncertain for me, despite the advantages I carried, we should be asking what it demands of people who begin from a far less privileged position.

What it cost me to build a life here

I first came to Australia in 2009 on a working holiday visa. When that visa ran out, I went back to the UK because I could not simply decide to stay.

I worked, saved money and returned on a student visa.

By that point, I was already a qualified teacher but at that time, Western Australia only recognised teachers who’d spent four years at university (and my degree was done in three). I enrolled in a one-year graduate diploma at an Australian university and paid approximately $11,000 in tuition fees upfront. There was no HECS-HELP loan available to me.

That amount did not include my visa application, compulsory health insurance, flights, accommodation, food, transport, textbooks or any of the other costs involved in living in Australia.

At the time, I was permitted to work only 20 hours a week while studying. At the end of my degree, I completed a seven-week, full-time, unpaid professional placement. I still had to pay rent and meet all my living expenses, but my ability to earn an income was severely limited.

After that, I spent another six months studying on a vocational student visa. That course cost me about $5,000, again paid upfront, in addition to another visa application, health insurance and living expenses.

Then came the permanent residency process.

There were migration-agent fees, visa charges, medical examinations, police checks, qualification assessments and other administrative costs. Collectively, that stage cost me at least another $20,000.

Before I became a permanent resident, I had invested at least $36,000 in tuition and migration costs alone. That figure excludes years of rent, food, transport, health insurance, flights and lost income from restricted working hours and unpaid placement.

Permanent residency still did not make me a citizen. I could not vote, and access to government support was restricted or subject to eligibility requirements and waiting periods. Citizenship came years later, after another application process and further costs.

So, when people talk about migrants coming here and taking from Australians, I have to ask: what exactly did I take?

I paid full fees for my education. I funded my own living expenses. I paid for private health insurance. I worked within tightly controlled limits. I completed unpaid professional practice. I paid visa fees, migration costs and taxes.

Australia received my money, my skills, my labour and my commitment long before it offered me any certainty that I would be allowed to stay.

The price of that journey today

My experience was almost two decades ago. The financial commitment expected of an international student today is substantially higher.

The primary student visa application charge is currently sitting at $2,500. It is a non-refundable application charge, not a guarantee that a visa will be granted.

Students must also pay international tuition fees upfront or according to their provider’s payment schedule. Depending on the course and institution, this can mean tens of thousands of dollars each year. At some major universities, annual international fees for particular degrees now exceed $50,000.

Applicants must demonstrate that they have access to funds for living expenses. The financial-capacity benchmark introduced in 2024 sits at approximately $30,000 for one student, before tuition fees, travel costs and compulsory Overseas Student Health Cover are added.

A student undertaking a one-year program could therefore need access to well over $60,000. Those completing multi-year qualifications may invest several times that amount.

They are also generally restricted to 48 hours of work per fortnight while their course is in session. Many qualifications include unpaid or poorly paid placements, further limiting students’ capacity to earn an income.

Imagine investing that amount of money in another country with no guarantee that you will be allowed to stay.

Imagine paying significantly higher fees than domestic students while being told that your presence is placing an unfair burden on the country.

Imagine building friendships, professional networks and a life, only to be told at the end of your studies that Australia was happy to accept your money but is no longer interested in you.

Would that feel like an easy pathway?

International students give far more than they take

Australia is very comfortable talking about international education as an export industry.

International education contributed an estimated $53.6 billion to the Australian economy in 2024–25. It supports jobs in education, hospitality, retail, transport, accommodation and numerous other industries.

International students pay tuition fees, rent homes, buy food, use local services, pay taxes when they work and spend money in Australian communities. They bring knowledge, languages, professional experience and international connections. They form friendships, join community groups and contribute to the cultural life of the places in which they live.

Most cannot access the financial support available to Australian citizens. They are expected to fund themselves, maintain health insurance and comply with extensive visa conditions. If their circumstances change, they cannot assume that Australia will catch them.

Yet public commentary often implies that international students are taking something from Australians.

What are they taking?

They are not receiving subsidised university places. They are paying full international fees.

They are not arriving with guaranteed permanent residency. Most have no certainty that they will be permitted to remain.

They are not automatically entitled to Australia’s social safety net. In many cases, they are paying taxes into systems from which they receive limited benefit.

Australia is receiving their tuition fees, visa charges, rent, consumer spending, labour and taxes. We are receiving the economic value of international education while retaining the right to tell students to leave when their visas end.

Who is giving more in that transaction?

International students did not create the housing crisis

International students need somewhere to live, so it would be dishonest to claim that student numbers have no effect on housing demand.

It is equally dishonest to present them as the cause of Australia’s housing crisis.

Research commissioned by the Student Accommodation Council estimated that international students occupied around 4 per cent of Australia’s rental housing at the 2021 Census. Later estimates placed their share at approximately 6.8 to 7.2 per cent in 2024.

Students are part of the rental market. They are not the whole market, and they did not create its structural problems.

Australia has failed to build enough housing in the right places over many years. The crisis also reflects construction costs, planning delays, infrastructure constraints, shrinking household sizes, low vacancy rates and the treatment of housing as an investment vehicle.

Short-term accommodation also deserves attention. Estimates have placed the number of Australian properties used as short-term rentals at around 100,000. While they represent a relatively small proportion of the total housing stock, their effects can be significant in tourist destinations and other areas with extremely tight rental markets.

Not every short-term rental could become a long-term home. Nor does every international student compete for a conventional private rental. Many students live with relatives, share rooms or use purpose-built student accommodation.

The point is not to find a new group to blame. The point is that Australia’s housing crisis is complex, structural and the product of decisions made over decades.

International students are simply an easier political target than property investors, planning systems, tax settings, construction capacity or governments that have consistently failed to ensure housing supply keeps pace with need.

If international students disappeared tomorrow, would Australia suddenly have enough social housing? Would construction costs fall? Would planning approvals accelerate? Would property cease to be treated as an investment vehicle? Would vacant homes and short-term rentals immediately return to the long-term market?

Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.

Who will build the houses?

If Australia needs more homes, it also needs people with the skills to build them.

We are attempting to deliver 1.2 million new homes under the National Housing Accord while the construction industry faces serious workforce shortages. Fee-free TAFE and apprenticeship incentives are important, but funding training places does not instantly produce qualified and experienced tradespeople.

Apprentices take time to train. Enrolment announcements mean little if people do not complete their qualifications or remain in the industry.

International education and skilled migration should be part of the workforce solution.

Australia has the capacity to train international students in areas of genuine need, provide high-quality workplace experience and create carefully designed pathways for graduates whose skills are required.

That does not mean every international student should be guaranteed permanent residency. It means education, workforce and migration policies should work together rather than contradict one another.

We cannot complain that there are not enough workers to build homes, deliver care, teach children and support essential services while making it harder for suitable people to train, work and build lives here.

We cannot ask, “Who will build the houses?” while excluding some of the people who could help us build them.

Migration policy should have integrity, but so should the public debate

Australia has every right to determine who can enter and remain in the country. Visa systems need integrity. Education providers should be held accountable, poor-quality courses should not be tolerated, and students should receive the education and support for which they have paid.

None of that requires us to dehumanise international students or pretend they are getting something for nothing.

Current policy is making Australia significantly more expensive and less certain as a study destination. Visa charges have increased, eligibility requirements have tightened, post-study options have narrowed and further restrictions continue to be introduced.

At the same time, we expect international students to provide billions of dollars in export income and help sustain large parts of our education sector.

We want their money, their labour and their contribution. We are simply becoming less willing to acknowledge the people providing them.

Since arriving in Australia, I have worked in education, contributed to the VET sector, paid taxes and become part of my community. None of that happened because I was handed an easy visa. It happened after years of study, work, expense, uncertainty and repeated assessments of whether Australia considered me valuable enough to remain.

International students should not be reduced to visa numbers, export dollars or rental-market demand. They are people making enormous financial and personal investments in Australia, frequently without any promise of a future here.

So, here is my question for Australians.

How would you feel if you invested $60,000, $100,000 or substantially more in another country, only to be spoken about as though you were taking something from its citizens?

How would you feel if you paid full fees, funded your own living costs, maintained private health insurance, paid taxes and followed every visa condition, but were still treated as a burden?

How would you feel if that country welcomed your money but made you feel like a second-class member of its community?

How would you feel if you studied for years, completed unpaid placements, worked in industries experiencing shortages and built a life, only to be told to go home?

Would you accept being blamed for a housing crisis you did not create?

Would you accept being described as a drain on an economy to which you had already contributed tens of thousands of dollars?

Would you accept being told that you should be grateful simply to have been allowed in, regardless of what you had given in return?

International students are not taking more from Australia than they give. Australia asks them to invest heavily, contribute immediately and accept that none of it creates an entitlement to stay.

Perhaps the people demanding that international students “go home” should ask themselves a more uncomfortable question:

If Australia takes their money, their labour, their skills and their contribution, then treats them as disposable when they are no longer politically convenient, who is really taking advantage of whom?