The Morrison government relaxed the cap on international students and extended the time they could stay here. Up went the number of ‘students’.

Albanese increased mass immigration and improved students’ chances of permanent residence, which is part and parcel of the desire to ‘study’ in Australia. Albanese also extended the number of hours they could work.

Immigrants were given 5 year student visas and 8 year “post-study” work visas.

This has delivered us huge numbers of non-authentic students, shonky education agents, and scam colleges.

Many Indians and Africans come here for work rights and permanent residency.

Albanese has now reduced the post-study work rights by two years, angering ‘students’ who say that they would not have come here had they known about it (surveyed).

Jolly good! It's a start that might go some way to controlling Australia’s population numbers to fit the country, not the mania to make the GDP look good, while impoverishing individuals who can't afford to buy a house or rent one of the few houses available; ease the pressure on the health system transport and all other services not being improved by the Big Australian Brigade.

There are about 700,000 foreign ‘students’ in Australia: not all of them are actually here to study.

(Source: Leith van Onselen, ‘Macrobusiness’, 16/4/24)

Australian Universities entire business model is based on foreign students, without them not much would work.

But I agree with you that many are not here to study. I saw that first hand as a guest lecturer. Qualifications are now a 'Product' to be purchased. My first tertiary qualification was free, lecturers failed people like me if we were not up to standard, no so now.

Random,

There is no doubt that universities are addicted to foreign students, and they need to be weaned off them. The problem is that governments have a similar addiction to importing people, so nothing is going to happen. Universities will continue to be back door immigration agents.

As for the shortage of rental housing because of all the foreign students in the market, it has been suggested that universities should be required to provide student accommodation to the tune of 2,000 premises for every 4,000 students they take money from.

pretty depressing to witness the only ones who can not grasp what's going on are the ones in charge !

It's a bit of a 'shoot yourself in the foot policy' if you think about it.

We're saying 'Hey foreigners, come to our country - we'll train you with all the skills and knowledge you need to succeed in a western society, and once you have those skills and that knowledge, you can use our country as a place to test and use those skills and that knowledge.
You can use your contacts and foreign language back in China or India or whatever country you're from to undercut all existing Australian businesses with a cheaper imported product or service;
Thus transferring the existing wealth of Australian businesses into foreign pockets, and putting Aussie workers in the dole queue...

Are they trying to say this is a win for capitalism, a win for Australia?
'Universities contribute greatly to the Australian economy'

Things have gotten so messed up these days that they don't make any sense.

We have this culture that champions democracy above all else.
But we also have this even bigger counter-culture that champions the 'minority' above all else.
Democracy is supposed to be about the will of the majority, not the will of the minority.
How does it make sense?
It's total madness.

Perhaps not madness by the perpetrators, but deliberate maddening of the masses, causing them to fight among themselves, while Albanese quietly changes the country as he said he would.

There is a solution, but it is one that is only available if enough voters stop voting for the Labor Green Alliance and the Coalition.

There are about 17 million voters who don't seem to have a clue where Australia is being pushed; nor do they realise that they are the only ones who can do anything about it.

"Following one of Australia’s most prosperous periods in history, the Albanese government has managed to increase the cost of living and reduce our sense of security in less than one political term. Further, our government has divided us along cultural lines and perpetuated a self-hating attitude towards all things that are good about our liberal democratic and Judaeo-Christian traditions and heritage." (Michael de Percy)

And the Clayton's Opposition is sitting, watching it happen.

Singapore, with none of the advantages that Australia has, enjoys a GDP twice the size of Australia's.

Both Labor and Liberals have a penchant for flooding the country with huge numbers of immigrants, many of whom remain attached to the violence and hatreds of their past.

The proposed Digital ID brings us another step closer to the Chinese communist-style credit score system; as does the threatened removal of cash.

50 % of Australia is already subject to Native Title, denying access to 97% of Australians. Now the Labor Green Alliance is denying the 97% access to further 30% of Australian land mass, leaving only 20% of the Australian land mass for them.

The Labor Green alliance intends placing unelected unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of private information and to control 80 per cent of the whole of the Australian land mass.The Labor Green Alliance wants to replace the free enterprise capitalist economy with big government, big bureaucracy and big population which will only be permitted to occupy 20% of the land.

Worse to come.

They're not even leaders anyway ttbn, not for our sakes anyway.
They're branch managers.

There's a bigger agenda at play with immigration.
'Change the people = Change the government'

If you change the people, and the minds of the people
They will vote in different leadership more amenable to UN goals and US hegemonic policies, which is essentially rule by elite western capitalists, who are really globalists and have no allegiance to country.

These so called leaders are there to help manage the change.
Not inform the populace, or let them decide their future.
These leaders are there to steer us all towards that which the elite have already decided FOR US.

They're all schmucks, tools for someone else's bidding - the question is whether they actually realise it or not.

Hows any normal Aussie supposed to be a centrist?

It's not as though one party just wants tax cuts for the rich;
And the other party wants more spent on hospitals and education.
You could find a middle position if that's all the arguments were.

Both parties are supporting high immigration and taking sides in what will likely end up in conflict between great powers
Where's the anti-war position - what democracy?
Where's the sensible immigration - what democracy?

One side of politics supports one band of lunatics
Think high immigration, DEI (diversity equality inclusive)
Feminists, LGBTIQ+ (and the plus is for bestiality apparently) and Pro risk of Islamic extremism.

The other band of fanatics are Pro-Christian, Pro-Evangelical, Pro-Nationalist but Pro-Israel and Pro-Genocide.

and Not-so-much Pro-DEI / Immigrants/ Feminists / Critical Race Theory / Transgender toilet / Sex with Pets / Risk of Islamic Extremism.

Where in the hell do you find the centre?
You can't, both sides have become fanatical, as has the leadership.
They don't seem that bad, but there's no 'sensible' options anymore.

And Aussie kids aren't going to easily even be able to buy their own homes.
So who wins here, really?

AC

You want a centre? How about the ex-Liberal Democrats that were forced by the Liberal Party to rebadge themselves Libertarians because the Liberals think the average voter is stupid enough to mix the two parties up and they could fail to vote Liberal, voting instead for the breakaway party. The Liberals have no more respect for the electorate than the Labor Green Alliance does

The Libertarians push small government, which is a start. I suspect that they are still too lefty for me.

Friend of mine dropped in just before.
her and her partner have a big family, quite a few kids.
She was talking about the living situation at her place.
I knew she moved about 3 or 4 months back, the real estate or owner wanted to jack up the rent, by a significant amount.

Apparently her partner had a sister, with alcohol dependency issues.
They decided to give it a go and got a bigger place, but things didn't work out, the sister was drinking too much, breaking things and blaming it on the kids.

Anyway she said she couldn't handle the kids anymore, and moved out leaving my friend with a large rent to pay.

She told me that 6 weeks back they took in a 16yo Chinese exchange student.
She gets paid about $400 per week, but has to provide meals and get him to school etc.
Apparently she said things are going really well.
The Chinese kids gets along with their boy, and their financial problems after the sister left are alleviated.

But I have to think about the impact of these foreign students.
'If you don't take one in, you can't afford the rent'

How much is all this really affecting prices?

small government, which is a start.
ttbn,
Labor would lose half its voters & the LNP would have the unenviable task to import thinking ones to get the Public Service to become what it's supposed to be.
We need to rid ourselves of the bureaucrats like those from the Molly the Magpie fiasco !

Albanese's plan for 1.2 million houses over 5 years is not going to happen, even with 5.2% of the population working in the industry.

This is one of the highest in the world. The OECD is 3.3%

Want more? Which sector will the workers be taken from? We can't bring anymore from overseas because there is nowhere for them to live!

Home builders are also competing for workers with Big Australia, Big Building government projects.

Costs have risen 30%-40% since the brilliantly-managed Covid fiasco.

The only solution to the housing crisis lies in cutting immigration of all kinds.

Indyvidual,

The bureaucrats are a problem. I saw somewhere the other day the suggestion that Australia is now run 'by the bureaucrats for the
bureaucrats'

How come Universities aren't made responsible for the chaos they're causing ?

Kudos ttbn and others. It's almost as if foreign students are funding Australian Academic Woke/ Communism and world communism. As Bob Whittacker says Communism is a World Academic Oligopoly with the factory workers and farmers as slaves.

CM

Yes. Communism seems to be the way we are heading. Commentators are openly using the word now, in relation to what is going on. Censorship, secrecy, digital ID, the uniparty.

ttbn - Communism seems to be the way we are heading. Commentators are openly using the word now, in relation to what is going on. Censorship, secrecy, digital ID, the uniparty.

Answer- Thanks ttbn. It's good that someone is listening to us- finally. But all things worth doing are hard. Take care mate. Sorry I don't always comment as much as I'd like.

CM

I hope you can have time to look at Graham's article today on digital ID.

Cheers.

Not about Australia, Not about immigrants
- But it is about students...

There's pro-Gaza student protests happening in the USA, and the establishment is starting to get concerned and crack down on them.
It might be similar to the student movements of the 70's that put an end to the Vietnam war.

Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies
http://youtu.be/oeYAA7I7nhE

Student movements did not stop the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon and China stopped it. Students were just a pain in the arse as they are now. All they did was kick of all the bad things that started in the 60s, and have got worse ever since.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10381#360169

Funn as. Students are a problem?

The problem with study is that it educates people. They are likely to understand science, critical thinking and capable of recognizing disinformation when they see it. That makes them 'Woke', apparently.

What the uneducated don't understand is, besides all of the above, is that the opposite of Woke is ... ignorance.