With greater spending power than tourists from New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the rapidly increasing number of Chinese tourist is expected to boost Australia’s tourism revenue further in the coming years. However, the sector’s overall growth may be thwarted by the severe skills shortage facing the hospitality industry.

A record 953,200 Chinese tourists visited Australian shores in the year to August, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nudging close to New Zealand’s 1.29 million. Coupled with the 212,400 travellers from Hong Kong, CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian predicts New Zealand may be bumped from the top spot in mid-2016.

He told The Australian that Chinese holiday makers are more economically valuable than their New Zealand counterparts because of their spending habits.

“I think the spending power of Chinese and Hong Kong tourists far exceeds what we see out of New Zealand,” he says.

“We’ve seen ongoing strength in incomes in China, a shift from a low income economy to a middle income economy and that’s probably the key driver, coupled with the fall in currency of the Australian dollar.”

According to the report, one of Australia’s busiest airports, Sydney Airport, saw a six per cent rise in international traffic in August, with travellers from China up 14.1 per cent and Hong Kong 10.2 per cent.

Recent statistics indicate that some 87% of student visa applications are not made through registered migration agents. This could very well mean that unregistered education brokers in the currently unregulated education broker industry are lodging a significant number of applications.

It could be a key reason why this year there was a 30% rise in student visa cancellations. Typically, the department of immigration cancels between 8,000 and 9,000 student visas – this year there were 11,000 student visa cancellations.

The visas of 1793 Chinese students were cancelled making them the highest risk group. With 1160 visa cancellations, South Korean students were next, followed in number by students from India, Vietnam and Thailand.

Low-quality education providers, unscrupulous education agents, and the overly complex current student visa framework have been blamed for these large number of visa cancellations.

Only about 13% of 60,000 student visa applications were lodged by migration agents registered with the office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) according to recent figures released by the authority in its latest Migration Agent Activity Report.

Over 80 per cent of foreign language advertisements are openly offering wages well below award rates with many of these jobs blatantly advertised as "black jobs", a Fairfax Media investigation in conjunction with Monash University has revealed.

The study of 1071 job advertisements aimed at temporary foreign workers, largely from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, show the vast majority offer work either below the minimum wage or the award. Most of the jobs appeared temporary or casual and did not include penalties and loadings.

The study analysed websites like http://www.backpackers.com.tw/ , yeeyi.com and some foreign language Facebook pages.

“…hundreds of thousands of workers across the economy, in food courts, cafes, factories, building sites, farms, hairdressers and retail [are] being exploited on low wages and believing they have no power to ask for their rights,” noted the report published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The study found that it was common for jobs to be openly advertised at $10 to $13 an hour, significantly below Australia's legal minimum wage of $17.29 an hour. It also noted that many job ads did not reveal pay rates and could very well be even lower – as low as $4 an hour.

Warning Australia that it is straining the trans-Tasman ‘special relationship’ by deporting Kiwi born criminals, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has told Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, that  New Zealanders should not be treated this way.

"I was pretty blunt and I said there's a special relationship between New Zealand and Australia and you challenge that relationship to a degree when you see New Zealanders being treated in this way," he told Radio New Zealand. "They've often spent their entire life in Australia and went over there when they were very, very young," he said.

According to an ABC report, the man “accused of ripping off foreign students is continuing to run his operation despite facing 22 charges of fraud and misconduct.”

Kang has denied the charges including a claim of making death threats against a client. He told the ABC via email that in fact he provides full refunds to his clients after all appeals are exhausted. Kang has also reportedly sued the ABC for defamation.

A DIBP spokesperson told that ABC that it conducted extensive investigations into the alleged practices of Kang relating to migration advice and visa applications, which has included working with a number of Federal and State government agencies.

Despite all this, he now calls himself Ted Kang and operates under the business name Skylane, which is offering to help clients secure visas and jobs.

The ABC reports that for the first time a former employee has made new claims about Mr Kang and how his business operates, giving an insider account of how he believes Kang is misleading both his clients and the Department of Immigration.