What will Australia’s population will look like in 2050? The reality is that it would have an overwhelming number of ageing retirees unless, immigration levels are maintained if not increased in order to slow the country’s rate of ageing, according to a recent report on the SBS.

The simple reason is that migration introduces ready-made young labour to the economy and deals with the problem of an ageing local population, prominent Australian demographer, Professor Peter McDonald told the SBS. A report by the Migration Council of Australia last year said that Australia needs to attract more skilled migrants in the order of 250,000 a year to boost the economy and sustain future growth.

With the current migration policies focussing on skilled labour, the Australian migration program systematically and continuously introduces working aged adults with the relevant skills to help prop up the economy and deal with the country’s ageing population.

Students caught cheating risk being failed, expelled and having their visas cancelled as University administrators step up investigations on ‘essay farms’ from where students buy essays and assignments to make the grade.

Last year, media reports revealed that thousands of students were buying essays and completed assignments paying up to $1000 for the ‘service’. Companies like MyMaster and Assignment King were reportedly openly advertising their services in Mandarin on various community websites.

The Australian National University which managed to pick-out some 51 fake assignments last year is now warning students not to put their future at risk as they will be failed and expelled should the fraud be uncovered. According to a report in The Canberra Times, the ANU has launched another major investigation into the matter, this year.

China’s middle-class have defied the economic slump their country is facing with a record number of tourists visiting the land down-under over the last year.

Tourism Australia managing director John O’Sullivan attributes this record growth to the shift in marketing away from targeting traditional group tours and focussing instead on China’s rapidly emerging middle class.

“Tourism Australia’s marketing, distribution and partnership strategies are all now geared towards targeting this new breed of young, independent traveller with the desire and the financial means to explore our country,” Mr O'Sullivan recently told Travel Weekly.

She spoke no English when she first went to kindergarten as a little girl in Wollongong, several years after her Italian parents migrated to Australia. But she went on to graduate as a lawyer from the ANU and in 2005 became a Senator for the state of New South Wales.

Last year, against the odds, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was appointed as the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Department of Social Services by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in his drive to have more women in Cabinet.

The Senator is described as perhaps the Liberal Party’s most vocal spokesperson for conservative multicultural views. Speaking to Jana Wendt in an SBS news feature recently, the Senator stated her conservative core beliefs – traditional marriage, family values, hard work – with a twist in the tail. These same beliefs, she insisted, are common to many migrant families. Based on years of interaction with such groups, she stated bluntly that the immigrant community was essentially conservative.

Bridging visa holder, Jaspal Singh’s father collapsed and died of a suspected heart attack upon arriving at Melbourne Airport on Monday morning. If he escorts his distressed mother, and father’s body to India for the funeral, he cannot return to Australia thus leaving his pregnant wife and 11 month old baby who is undergoing medical treatment, to fend for themselves indefinitely – unless the immigration minister intervenes.

Mr Jaspal Singh, who is the only son of Mr Gurdyal Singh, is currently on a bridging visa pending a decision on a reportedly complicated partner visa application. He had stayed on in Australia illegally for 3 weeks after his visa expired in 2013. According to an ABC report, he subsequently “applied for a new visa with his new wife but it can now only be approved by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.”

As it stands, his current bridging visa disallows him from returning to Australia, if he leaves the country. Mr Singh's wife Mandeep Kaur, who is pregnant with their second child, told the ABC that the family was incredibly distressed.

"I am 12 weeks pregnant, I have an 11-month-old baby and my baby is suffering from kidney problems and I'm going to regular appointment with the doctor, and I can't stay overseas with the baby. We're all very upset, all the family, me, my mother-in-law, Jaspal."

Carina Ford Lawyers have lodged an appeal for ministerial intervention and the DIBP has told the ABC that it is looking into the matter.