International student appeal backlog doubles in five months and ‘will only get bigger’

In the latest six-week period, 67 per cent of department decisions to reject student visas were set aside by the tribunal.

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Rizvi said the system was prone to “being gamed a bit” but the success rate suggested Home Affairs was using highly subjective criteria to reject student visas.

“The department is concluding ‘you’re not a genuine student’, but the tribunal decision maker is telling them their decision is not well-based and their judgment doesn’t have merit,” he said.

“That means people do get their student visa, and then will continue to look for ways of extending their stay.”

The review tribunal, which considers decisions made by the government and public service, is the new body that was set up by Labor in October to replace the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The 3557 student visa refusal cases lodged with the tribunal in its first six weeks of operation are just shy of the 3893 appeals for student visa refusals lodged throughout all of 2023.

The data continues a trend observed throughout 2024: the federal government’s rejection of more than 20 per cent of student applications – the highest refusal rate in at least two decades – has led to a growing number of appeals, prolonging people’s stay.

It’s a difficult dynamic for the Albanese government, which has been trying to reduce net migration numbers under political pressure but has been thwarted because fewer migrants are leaving the country.

International students are a key element of that challenge, although upward pressure on net migration is also coming from New Zealanders escaping their weak economy and working holidaymakers drawn to Australia’s strong jobs market.

Rizvi said it meant the government would keep struggling to meet migration targets.

“The student visa boom, the working holidaymaker boom, combined with the strong labour market, means that people aren’t going home,” he said.

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“Treasury’s forecasts for net migration assume all these students and working holidaymakers can somehow be driven out of the country when they don’t want to leave.”

Immigration looms as a heated federal election issue as both Labor and the Coalition have vowed to bring down the migration numbers while painting the other as ineffective in managing the system.