More than a quarter of the people living in Australia are born overseas, according to the SBS, the highest level since 1894.
According to the latest immigration figures released this month by Australia`s Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 28.5 per cent of Australian residents were born overseas in 2015-16. According to Bureau of Statistics, people who have lived in Australia for 12 months within 16 months belong to Australian residents.
More and more foreign students are pushing up the proportion of Australian residents born overseas, many of whom end up living in Australia forever.
The number of student visas in Australia rose to 471000 in September 2016, up from 426000 in September 2015, according to the data. In 2015-16, about 1/5 of those who came to live in Australia from abroad were college students. When other types of students are taken into account, the proportion is closer to 1/4.
In addition, the Productivity Commission (Productivity Commission) released a report on immigration reception last year. About 20000 international students who come to Australia on temporary visas switch to permanent residence visas each year, according to the report.
Withers (Glenn Withers), a professor at (Australian National University) Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, wrote an article entitled "ensuring that immigrants are good for all" (Ensuring immigration benefits all), which was included in last year`s report of the economic Development Council (Committee for Economic Development) of Australia. In the article, he proposed improving immigration policy to avoid population expansion, encourage more immigrants to go to smaller township areas, and adopt policies to support immigrants awaiting visa approval, while keeping Australia`s economic strong.
"I think immigration has made a great contribution to Australia over the past 20 or 30 years. After especially implemented reforms in the 1980s, paying more attention to highly skilled immigrants," he said in an interview with SBS.
Speaking of international students, Withers said that students who work in Australia end up using their income to create jobs in Australia.
"they spend all their income, and they get money from their parents to spend it. So they create jobs."
While the number of international students continues to grow, the number of temporary work visas in Australia fell to 172000 in September 2016, down 8 percent in a year.
