Extra 539,000 now call Australia home as migration hits a record high

This is plainly unsustainable

More than half a million migrants came to Australia in the last financial year, new figures from the Bureau of Statistics show.

While 539,000 people arriving was the highest number of overseas migrants ever to come to Australia's shores in one year, the figure was offset by 276,000 leaving.

Factoring in departures, 262,000 migrants moved to Australia – below the record number of 300,000 in the 2009 financial year, said Myles Burleigh, migration statistics director at the bureau.

But internal migration – those moving from one state to another – hit its highest level in 13 years.

Victoria had the largest population gain from interstate migration of any state, just ahead of Queensland.

Over the year, almost 87,000 people moved from another state to Victoria and 68,500 left – producing Victoria’s highest ever net gain, Mr Burleigh said.

"Queensland was just behind, with a net gain of 17,800 people."

Of the 539,000 people who migrated to Australia over the year, 315,000 arrived on a temporary visa – including just over 150,000 international students, more than 50,000 on a working holiday, and 32,000 workers on temporary skill visas.

Migration to Victoria among those on temporary visas reached a 12-year high, driven by increasing numbers of international students. Almost 97,000 people on temporary visas arrived in Victoria – about half of them students.

Over the same year about 34,000 people on temporary visas left Australia, resulting in a net increase of about 63,000. The year before, net migration on temporary visas was about 50,000.

Economist Terry Rawnsley said the population boom placed great strain on Victorian infrastructure.

“The trade-off is that the big number coming for higher education," said Mr Rawnsley, from SGS Economics and Planning. He said education exports accounted for $9 billion worth of Victoria exports in the 2016-17 financial year.

"This is almost 20 per cent of total Victorian exports. This is compared to $1.8 billion for dairy exports and $2.4 billion of meat export," he said. Education exports had tripled over the past decade, he said.

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More than 900 foreigners move to Australia on spousal visas EVERY WEEK - amid fears 'mail to order' Russian brides are leaving their partners as soon as they're let into the country

More than 900 foreigners who start a relationship with an Australian citizen overseas or online are granted spousal visas every week.

The figures equate to about 48,000 foreign wives - and occasionally husbands - being allowed to move to Australia each year after being granted a partner visa by the Department of Home Affairs under the family migration category.

The rules on spousal visas haven't changed since 1996, when the Howard government introduced a two-year waiting period before foreigners could be accepted.

One of the country's most respected population experts has called for tighter rules to ensure those granted the visas can speak English, integrate into the country and work.

Dr Bob Birrell, the head of the Australian Population Research Institute, said the existing rules were open to abuse.

'My main concern is just how weak our rules are on spouse migration,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'They could have arrived yesterday and there's no evaluation at all on the financial capacity or the financial security of the spouse, or to provide for the spouse. 'It's just quite extraordinary, really.'

Dr Birrell, a former Monash University academic and immigration policy adviser, said the existing system also allowed the unemployed to bring a spouse over.

'They don't have to have a job, they could be on welfare. That is not taken account of,' he said.

'Nor is there any evaluation of the sponsored spouse capacity to integrate in Australia: does he or she have any English, have any skills?'

Lawrence Shave, a 74-year-old Pentecostal evangelical pastor from southern Perth who is twice divorced, five years ago found a Ukrainian woman to be his bride. Unfortunately for him, Oksana left him for another man.

Last year, he advertised for a Russian bride aged between 20 and 44 via the SingleBridesAgency.com dating website, which specialises in eastern European women.

The church minister, who ran as a One Nation state election candidate in 2017, sought a Russian woman who shared his Christian faith. 'I am still looking for my special Christian partner that has old family values,' he told Daily Mail Australia last year. 

Meanwhile, Australia is set to gain 11.8 million residents over the next 30 years, with the population ballooning to 36 million by 2046.

The overall population is growing faster than the U.S., U.K. and Indonesia, with migration accounting for almost two thirds of the country's growth, and is set to surpass the 25 million milestone in the first week of August.

If Australia's immigration intake continues as it is, Melbourne will have eight million people by 2051 and leapfrog Sydney as Australia's largest city.

Sydney is predicted to grow to 7.4 million people by 2046 and Brisbane and Perth's population will both double to four million.

More immigrants settling permanently in Australia since the turn of the millennium were born in India than anywhere else.

Census data revealed nearly 300,000 permanent migrants arrived from the country between 2000 and 2016.

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Australia gains as Britain loses its appeal for foreign students

Australia is about to overtake Britain as the second most popular destination for international students.

It is likely to have already outstripped Britain in the number of overseas students from outside Europe, according to research based on international enrolment figures from across the world and suggests the UK's spot as the leading destination for European students is "about to be decimated by Brexit".

The paper by Simon Marginson, director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at University College London, draws on data from Unesco and the Higher Education Statistics Agency. It concludes that Australia may have surpassed Britain in 2018 and, if not, will almost certainly do so in 2019. The US is the top destination.

Unesco figures on incoming international students from all parts of the world appeared to show that Britain was comfortably ahead of Australia in 2015, with 431,000 overseas students compared with 294,000.

The research says the gap has narrowed substantially with international student numbers growing by 2.6 per cent between 2011 and 2015 in the UK and by 12.1 per cent in Australia over the same period. National data obtained by Times Higher Education magazine, which reported slightly different figures, suggests that these rates of growth have continued in 2016.

Professor Marginson said the government was "running a post-study work visa regime that is much less attractive than that in Canada, Australia and, until recently, the US".

"It is this, not Brexit, which will ensure that the UK moves down to number three in the global student market in 2018 or 2019," he said. "Later, however, Brexit will compound the decline." If EU students are charged international student fees post-Brexit, "then it is impossible to imagine anything other than a substantial overall drop in EU students entering the UK, and that will erode the UK's already declining global market share."

He added: "After more than half a decade in which migration politics and Home Office regulation have conspired to hold international student numbers in a flatline trend, the UK is the world's leading nation in educating international students from Europe at tertiary level, but its position is about to be decimated by Brexit's effect on tuition prices."

Australia has six universities in the global top 100 ranking, published by the magazine. The highest ranked this year was Melbourne University, which was 32nd. However, Australia is perceived as more welcoming in some countries, particularly India where numbers studying in Australia have soared.

Britain is perceived as less welcoming to international students than some other English-speaking countries. This year it emerged the Home Office may have falsely accused 7,000 foreign students of faking their proficiency in English and told them to leave.

Simon Birmingham, Australia's minister for education, put a video on YouTube in which he says students from more than 180 countries are very welcome in Australia which is a "safe and friendly place to live and study". After graduating, Australia invites international students with a qualification relating to a key occupation to apply for an 18-month visa. A post-study work stream gives extended options, with a visa of two, three or four years.

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Senior figures in the Turnbull Government have told the ABC they believe the United States is prepared to bomb Iran's nuclear capability, perhaps as early as next month, and that Australia is poised to help identify possible targets

The ABC has been told secretive Australian defence facilities would likely play a role in identifying targets in Iran, as would British intelligence agencies.

But a senior security source emphasised there was a big difference between providing accurate intelligence and analysis on Iran's facilities and being part of a "kinetic" mission.

"Developing a picture is very different to actually participating in a strike," the source said.

"Providing intelligence and understanding as to what is happening on the ground so that the Government and allied governments are fully informed to make decisions is different to active targeting."

The top-secret Pine Gap joint defence facility in the Northern Territory is considered crucial among the so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence partners — the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — for its role in directing American spy satellites.

Analysts from the little-known spy agency Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation would also be expected to play a part.

Canada would be unlikely to play a role in any military action in Iran, nor would the smallest Five Eyes security partner New Zealand, sources said.

As Israel faces off against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East, all eyes are on Donald Trump's next move.
Any US-led strike on Iranian targets would be fraught for a region bristling with tensions. Israel would have reason to be anxious about retaliation, given Iran rejects Israel's right to exist.

That said, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April invoked the so-called "Begin Doctrine" that calls on the Jewish state to ensure nations hostile to Israel be prevented from developing a nuclear weapons capability.

"Israel will not allow regimes that seek our annihilation to acquire nuclear weapons," Mr Netanyahu said.

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