By Ashok Kumar

 In a democracy, it is hard to believe that a government could think of any draconian law that turns a blind eye towards the future of hundreds and thousands of students who want to benefit the country with their skills they acquired by studying and working in this country.

The Immigration and Citizenship Minister, Mr. Chris Evans has sent the Migration Amendment Bill 2010, popularly known as Visa Capping Bill to the Senate for approval and that is more or less certain to win the approval if the elections are not held early. The approved amendment will have a retrospective effect. With the new powers the Minister attains, he will ask thousands of potential migrants to leave after accepting their applications and granting them the bridging visa, or in other words assuring them of a settlement in Australia.

Now how can a government first accept, process and approve and then say sorry we can’t proceed. Agreed that it is the prerogative of the government to act as per its changing needs but Mr. Evans should consider the fact that these student have ‘bought a dream’ and whosoever may have been the seller, they have invested in the future of Australia. It is a democracy and not anarchy as yet in Australia.

The Indian sub-continent community has rallied behind these prospective migrants who have adapted to the work culture of this country and set up an organisation “Friends of International students” to further their cause.  We sincerely hope that similar teams have been set up by members of other migrant communities as well.

Prominent among the “Friends of International students” team include:

1.     Mr. Raj Datta – Chairperson, Deepavali Festival Committee of NSW

2.      Ms. Aruna Chandrala – President, United Indian Associations

3.      Ms. Lucky Singh – President GOPIO Sydney

4.      M . Apoorv Chaturvedi- Exec Member, Friends of International Students

5.      Mr. Syed Nazmus Sakib- Exec Member, Friends of International Students

6.      Mr. Vish Viswanathan, President – Federation of  Australian Indian Associations

7.      Dr. Yadu Singh – Representative – Hindi Samaj, Member, UIA, General Committee

8.      Mr. Rahul Jethi – Exec Member, Friends of International Students

9.      Dr J S Virk – Chairman, GOPIO Australia Business Council

10.    M Ranjit Khera – Punjabi Heritage Association of Australia    

With a view to helping the cause of International students a petition has been lodged to the Federal Government seeking changes to the proposed amendment to the Migration Regulation Act 1994.

The petition is accessible on http://fairgo4internationalstudents.org

The team has called upon the international community members to click on the ‘sign the petition’ and contribute their signature for a just cause.

Cutting across different sections of the community, several members have given their opinion on the proposed amendment.

Dr Yadu Singh, a member of the “Friends of International students” and who has written blogs www.yadusingh.wordpress.com and used his twitter account www.twitter.com/dryadusingh in support of the student community.

He comments,”I have met several distressed former students over recent weeks. They are suffering due to their uncertain future in Australia. I have met and discussed these issues with many people of our community. I feel that the Visa capping Bill 2010, if passed, should be applied prospectively, not retrospectively. It will not be fair if it is applied on those who have completed their studies, have applied for PR and are on bridging Visa currently. People should get “Fair go”.

I make an appeal to people from our community to not play any divisive politics in this matter. All groups from our community should work as a part of a bigger team and avoid doing things in isolation. Consultative approach is the need of the hour. Undermining one another should be avoided. We need to learn from the history and definitely not become pawns in the “divide and weaken” games of political parties and their “henchmen” in our community. These “machinery men” of the political parties have a different agenda as their primary loyalty is to the political party of which they are members, not our community. Many of such “Machinery men” of political parties are actually paid members of Unions and their primary loyalty is not difficult to guess. Knowing that Political parties have tried and succeeded to a large extent in controlling at least a segment of our community leadership, I am hoping that our community leaders will have a re-thinking on this and not allow themselves to be used by poltical parties with useless photo opportunities. Substantive stands, demands and actions are needed. Now is the time when our “leaders” should show leadership.

Affected students need our help, support and counsel which our community leaders must provide. This is their duty.”

Mr. Vish Viswanathan, President, Federation Of Australian Indian Associations Inc says, “The Federal Government has a moral responsibility in dealing with the issue of International Students affected due to the Visa Capping Bill. While it is necessary to clean up the immigration system and plug loopholes in the system currently being exploited by unscrupulous agents, it is also important to ensure innocent students are not drastically affected due to retrospective implementation of the new rules. Nobody wants to see more colleges closed. It is very important for the Federal Government to consult with the community organisations and the affected students to reach a truly beneficial migration program which will benefit the Australian economy in the long term. Hope the Government will listen to us, the community for reaching  a WIN WIN situation.”

Ms. Lucky Singh, President GOPIO Sydney says “A retrospective application of the proposed amendments to several thousands of legally lodged GSM applications is unjust and unfair.We urge the Federal Government to continue the processing of GSM visa applications that are already in the pipeline. The international students have devoted their long times towards this wait for GSM visa and even contributed massively in Australian infrastructure. They have paid taxes on times and the tax paid ratio from overseas migrated people is more from anyone else in Australia. Our international migrated people have grown a lot in Australia with the growth of Australian economy.

This axe on international students will not only ruin the image of Australia in International market but also bring a huge downfall to the Australian infrastructure and multiculturism.

So it’s a humble request that Australia should not adopt an absolute hard line system because a diversity of skills and backgrounds is needed to create an effective and productive society.”

Meanwhile, there are reports that some office-bearers of the United Indian Associations have met some ministers and MPs in Canberra purportedly in this connection. But some of the members of the team have expressed their shock at the developments as they were not consulted on the agenda or the timing for the meeting.

Related posts:

1. No limit on student visas: Chris Evans
2. Evans halves skilled occupation List for migration
3. Indian students among top visa violators; Minister assures safety
4. NSW forms Working Group to address to violence against Indian Students
5. Sydney Singhalese students fighting for life after acid attack