What are Labor’s new migration rules for Australia?

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has unveiled the government’s revamp of Australia’s migration settings, announcing changes to student visas, working holidaymakers and the practice of “visa hopping”.

Addressing the National Press Club, Burke said the changes would restore confidence in the Australian migration system, breaking his proposal down into the categories “who arrives”, “who stays” and “who leaves”.

The announcement comes amid a growing debate with One Nation and the Coalition over the appropriate number of arrivals to the country.

Labor is seeking a net overseas migration figure of between 250,000 and 300,000. Pauline Hanson’s party is seeking a radical reduction into negative net migration for three years, before settling at 130,000.

The Coalition is pinning its net migration rate to housing completions, between 150,000 and 170,000.

Net overseas migration is the total number of people entering the country minus the number of people leaving.

Here are all the changes Burke revealed on Thursday:

Who arrives

• The “points test”, which calculates who can access a skilled visa, has been altered in consultation with Treasury. The new equation will mean trade qualifications in construction will be worth as much as a university degree.
• Burke will order people with construction, agriculture, fisheries, resources and teaching visas to be prioritised when bureaucrats are assessing who receives a visa. This will add to defence and healthcare workers who were already included in the last ministerial direction.
• The government will seek “constructive” conversations with the United Kingdom about the rapid growth of British backpackers travelling to Australia thanks to the free trade agreement. Burke said when that agreement was signed there were around 17,000 backpackers from the UK in Australia, which has now risen to just under 80,000.
• International students will no longer be able to bring family members to Australia. There will be exceptions for students from the Pacific and ASEAN countries, and for students studying certain courses such as PhDs. Family members of international students who are currently in the country will not lose their visas.
• Working holidaymakers, or “backpackers”, will face a ballot system to access second and third-year visa renewals. Entry to the second-year ballot will require 88 days of regional work, and the third year will require six months of regional work, which is unchanged from the current settings. Second-year places will drop from 57,000 to 45,000, and third-year places will drop from 31,000 to 5000.

Who stays

• New visitor visas will be subject to a “no further stay provision” to slow the growth of people accessing bridging visas.
• International students will only be able to have their visas extended for further study if they seek a higher degree after the completion of their course. This means after the completion of a bachelor’s degree, a visa can be extended for the study of a master’s degree, but not another bachelor’s or an associate degree.
• Burke flagged he would like to crack down on spurious asylum claims, saying that 80 per cent of claims currently come from countries where more than 85 per cent of applications fail. He said there was a legislative negotiation that would need to take place, and therefore he could not make an announcement on that matter.

Who leaves

• The government will update the code dictating how migration agents act, so those supporting “non-meritorious” claims can be sanctioned and deregistered.
• Visa overstayers will be placed in detention centres as they organise their departure in a push towards “behavioural change”. The government will fund 100 more compliance officers and 250 additional beds to house overstayers. Existing centres near airports would be utilised, and a former quarantine facility in Melbourne may be repurposed.
• Burke stressed this would not look like “the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries”, a likely reference to violent ICE arrests of migrants in the United States. The number of overstayers is estimated to be 77,000.