Secondary and onshore Australian visas ‘next to be targeted’

International students and their families will be prime targets of the Australian government’s postponed “migration crackdown”, according to speculation reported in the national broadsheet.

The government plans to emulate the UK by preventing most students from bringing dependants with them, The Australian newspaper predicted. “Secondary” visas for accompanying family members will only be available to higher research degree students, Pacific islanders, East Timorese and recipients of foreign government scholarships or Australian departmental sponsorships, the report suggests.

It says home affairs minister Tony Burke is also expected to curtail foreigners’ rights to apply for student visas from within Australia. New course-hopping restrictions would also be imposed, particularly on higher education graduates enrolling in vocational education and training (VET) programmes.

Burke was scheduled to announce migration changes at the National Press Club on 6 August but cancelled his address at short notice. The Australian reported that the new rules would now be unveiled in September. There has been speculation that Burke could appear at the Press Club as early as the coming week.

If enacted, the measures could have a devastating effect on some educational subsectors – particularly VET and English language training – but would also hit higher education hard. Of the visas awarded for taught master’s and bachelor’s programmes last financial year, 13 per cent went to students’ family members and 37 per cent went to people who had applied within Australia.

These “onshore” applicants are an increasingly prominent source of universities’ overseas enrolments. Two years ago, the proportion of higher education students who had obtained their visas from within Australia stood at just 21 per cent.

The latest available student visa statistics, covering July, show that the decline in issuances for higher education students has not abated. Forty per cent fewer visas were granted last month than in July 2025.

The visa grant rate for higher education students who applied from overseas was 66 per cent – the lowest July figure in at least 21 years – and considerably lower for key South Asian source countries. Just 48 per cent of applicants in India, 19 per cent in Bangladesh and 13 per cent in Nepal proved successful.

Demand for Australian higher education visas has also declined, albeit not as steeply as supply. About 8,400 primary applications were lodged from overseas last month, 14 per cent fewer than in July 2025. Applications were up 6 per cent from China but down 32 per cent from India, 56 per cent from Nepal and 65 per cent from Bangladesh.

Universities Australia (UA) said income from international students was the only “realistic, scalable” source of money for its members to cross-subsidise expensive courses for locals, bankroll “critical” infrastructure, fund research overheads and cover the “ever increasing” costs of compliance.

“A lot of the Australian public think [that as] public universities, [we] must be funded for all of those things,” UA chair Carolyn Evans told the Press Club. “We’re not. Government doesn’t pay for any of them, and they haven’t shown any interest in doing so.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com