Number of Chinese applying for refuge in Australia TRIPLES in just one year as handouts of student and bridging visas massively expand

Is there no end to this?

New figures show the number of Chinese nationals applying for refuge in Australia has tripled in just a year.

The Department of Home Affairs has released data showing 9315 residents from the People's Republic of China relocated to Australia in 2017-18.

That represented a 311 per cent increase on 2016-17, when that figure had been 2269.

The applications cited a variety of reasons for refugee status, with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) seeing cases of people claiming to be members of persecuted groups, having a love child in Australia, or identifying as LGBT.

Joyce Chia, the Refugee Council of Australia director of policy, said many of those applying for refugee status had successfully arrived in Australia on student and tourist visas.

She pointed particularly to the lucrative international student industry in Australia, believed to be worth close to $32billion.

'Chinese people have increasing access [to Australia] is also a large factor,' she told the ABC.

Australia has rubber stamped an estimated 652,000 international student visas in that 12 month period — including almost 200,000 from China. 

'Once you are in the country, either as a tourist or a student, if you then apply for a protection visa, you are eligible for a bridging visa,'  Mary Anne Kenny, an Associate professor of law at Murdoch University, said.

'Depending on the type, [it] may give you the right to work and can take some time [to process] depending on how long it takes the department to process the application.'

As of August this year, there were 176,000 people on bridging visas in Australia — a massive spike from roughly 40,000 people in August 2017. 

A spokesman from the Department of Home Affairs said 'Australia takes its international obligations seriously.'

'Án assessment of whether an asylum seeker engages Australia's protection obligations is based on the individual merits of each case,' the spokesman said.

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How it could be ILLEGAL to say 'he' or 'she': Failing to use transgender terms could land Australians in court under proposed laws

Using the pronouns 'he' and 'she' could land Australians before the courts under Tasmania's controversial transgender rights reforms, legal experts have warned.

Landmark reforms - put forward by the Labor opposition, the Greens and slammed by Scott Morrison as 'ridiculous' - could include a provision that would make it illegal for people to refuse to name others by their preferred pronoun.

The proposed laws would allow parents in Tasmania to decide whether their child's gender is recorded on birth certificates - and enable people aged 16 or older to legally change their gender.

The bill passed Tasmania's lower house last month and must now pass the state's 15-member upper house - nine of whom are independents - to become law.

Dr Greg Walsh from the University of Notre Dame Australia said the reforms were largely 'admirable', but condemned dictating how people use pronouns as 'completely unacceptable'.

'The Tasmanian parliament's proposed changes to its anti-discrimination legislation could make it illegal for a person to not accept a transgender person's gender identity,' Dr Walsh told The Australian.

'Although it is admirable that parliamentarians want to ensure those who are transgender are ­respected, the attempt to use state power to force individuals to use language that contradicts their deeply held beliefs is completely unacceptable.'

Conservative ­activist group Advance Australia described the proposed changes as a 'slippery slope', 'compelled speech', and asked: 'What's next?'

'If a trans person said to me, ''I would prefer it if you called me or address me by X'', out of respect, you would do it. But the government has no place telling you that you must say that,' the organisation's national ­director, Gerard Benedet, told the paper. 

The changes were last month passed by the casting vote of Tasmania's Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey, who voted against her party and with Labor and the Greens.

Liberal Attorney-General Elise Archer believes the amendments are deeply flawed.

'This amended bill contains legally untested, unconsulted and highly problematic changes that we could not support,' she said in a statement last month.

Transforming Tasmania, a transgender and gender-diverse rights group, has lauded the proposed changes, as have Labor and the Greens.

'These changes will make people, who we should all care about, feel happier, safer and more included,' state Greens leader Cassy O'Connor told parliament.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously criticised the debate over the removal of gender markers from passports and birth certificates.

'A Liberal national government will never remove gender from birth certificates, licenses and passports - who are Labor kidding? Get real,' Morrison wrote on Twitter.

'This is the problem with Labor, obsessed with nonsense like removing gender from birth certificates rather than lower electricity prices, reducing tax for hard-working families and small businesses.'

Campaigners condemned Morrison's remarks as an 'outdated' and a 'totally inappropriate' attack against the LGBT+ community.

'Yet again, we see a destructive statement from someone in a position of prominence and influence,' Sally Goldner, a spokeswoman for Transgender Victoria, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

'To attempt to link the words transgender and nonsense is vilification and totally inappropriate.'

In September, the prime minister drew widespread criticism after commenting on social media that schools do not need 'gender whisperers' in response to a report that teachers are being trained to identify transgender children. 

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Falling education standards prompts review

The national curriculum needs to be decluttered and simplified to help Australian students excel, the federal education minister says.

Dan Tehan has flagged a review of the curriculum, which could see revamped learning goals for Australian schoolchildren.

"What I'm hearing from teachers and principals is there is just too much on the curriculum, there is too much being asked of teachers to teach," Mr Tehan told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

"What they want to see is a more simplified curriculum and that's why I'm calling for us to look at decluttering the Australian curriculum."

But a "total overhaul" is not required as the fundamentals are right, he says.

The minister concedes the review is in response to falling education standards, with the nation dropping in world rankings for reading, mathematics and science during the past 15 years.

Recent concerns flagged by Australia's chief scientist Alan Finkel has prompted Mr Tehan to zero in on science and mathematics, to ensure they are being focused on.

"So we're setting up our young people if they want to go into careers as scientists or other areas in those STEM subjects," he said.

Mr Tehan outlined the review during a speech at an education conference in Canberra on Monday, ahead of a meeting with his state and territory counterparts on Friday.

The minister will also ask his counterparts to revamp the nation's declaration of education goals, which was first developed under the Gillard government in 2008.

The original declaration advocates for equity and excellence in education, and Mr Tehan hopes to broaden its scope to also focus on early, vocational and higher education.

"I want to hear from the students in the classroom, the teachers on the frontline, the parents supporting their school communities to succeed and the subject matter experts," he says.

The minister praised the NSW government's schools community charter as a model for clear and respectful communications between teachers and parents.

He's also pushing for teachers to be able to ban mobile phones in classrooms if they are distracting students.

Labor's education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says the government should reverse its $14 billion cut to public schools to help students master the basics.

"That's the only way to ensure every child gets the individual attention they need to excel in reading, writing, maths and science," Ms Plibersek told AAP on Monday.

"All we've had from the Liberals is cheap talk and harsh cuts. Meanwhile, Australian schoolkids are being left behind."

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Labor Left poised for showdown on reforms

Labor’s Left faction has unveiled a radical economic, social and foreig­n policy agenda — including on refugees — ahead of the party’s national conference this weekend that could place ­faction bosses on a collision course with the leadership.

Senior faction leaders Paul ­Erickson, the party’s assistant ­national secretary, and Rose Jackson, the NSW assistant secret­ary, have urged delegates to support the “most progressive platform Labor has offered in generations” and go further with even bolder policies.

A conference showdown on refugee policy looms, with some in the Left eager to press for further changes than those outlined in the party’s draft policy platform, including the fast-tracking of refugee medical transfers.

Labor MP Ged Kearney, the former ACTU president, writes in the Left faction magazine Challenge, obtained by The Australian, that members must fight for a more “humane and progressive” policy towards asylum-seekers.

In calling for an end to “indefin­ite detention” on Manus Island and Nauru, she writes: “We are determined, though, to delive­r a national platform that resets the awful practice of punishi­ng asylum-seekers for seeking our safety and protection.

“Labor’s goal must be to get everyone held in offshore detention to safety and build a framework that could mean nobody actually has to go to offshore-­processing facilities.”

Support is also mounting in the Left to pursue changes more likely to win broad approval, ­including amending the ALP platform to reflect the parlia­ment­ary party’s policy shift to embrace the fast-tracking of ­refugee medical transfers.

National co-convener for Labor for Refugees Shane Prince told The Australian yesterday there was still a prospect of the platform being amended to ­sec­ure more far-reaching changes to the offshore-processing regime.

Mr Erickson and Ms Jackson write in Challenge that Labor must advocate for “a radically more equal society” and that the national conference will be a key test of this. “A society that elevates the rights and aspirations of working people,” they argue. “A society that tackles the immediate challeng­e of the looming climate catastrophe without leaving work­ers and communities behind. A society that plays a leading role in creating a more just and more peaceful world.

“Our vision is far-reaching and forward-looking, but this is ­exactly what is called for as the counterpoint to the narrow and ­reactionary agenda of the conservativ­es.” The national Left’s core priorities, identified in Challeng­e, include:

* Supporting the union movement’s rewrite of workplace laws that would increase bargaining power and wages;

* Insisting workers’ rights be protected in international trade deals;

* Lifting foreign aid, signing the nuclear weapons ban treaty, and supporting Palestinian statehood;

* Increasing the Newstart Allowance, backing the Uluru Statement from the Heart before a vote on a republic, and advocating more humane treatment of asylum-seekers.

Mr Erickson and Ms Jackson write that Labor cannot afford to be complacent about the division in the Coalition. “Voters will ­reward those polit­icians who use their platform to say and do something meaningful, whilst pretend­ers and time-­wasters will be cast aside,” they write.

Labor’s incoming national vice-president Mich-Elle Myers says in Challenge that Labor must commit to a comprehensive overhau­l of workplace relations.

“Workers should be able to withdraw their labour to fight for their rights, bargaining should be across industry to put everyone on a level playing field, and once an agreement is reached nobody should be able to tear it up,” said Ms Myers, a CFMEU official.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here