In an attempt to entice more visitors from the west to Australia, Tourism Australia is set to splurge $40 million next year on a marketing campaign promoting Australian beaches and aquatic attractions.

Last year’s campaign which focussed on food and wine, resulted in a 40% jump on spending in the restaurant sector to $700 million. Tourism Australia hopes the new multi-platform campaign, to be launched early next year will do the same.

Spending across all other tourist sectors rose this year as visitor numbers from the 20 top source countries posted new highs. China continued to lead the growth with huge increases; visitor numbers are up 22 per cent to 896,000, nights up 25 per cent to 39.3 million and spend up a huge 43 per cent to $7.7 billion. 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.

Tourism Australia, is now aiming to broaden the markets by touting Australia’s aquatic and coastal experiences, something it believes will appeal particularly to visitors from the west. It is hoping that the campaign will also draw people out of the capital cities into coastal towns.

Promotional materials for the campaign, which will include virtual reality and 360 mobile assets as well as a new broadcast ad and other print and digital materials, have been shot in locations such as Rottnest Island in Western Australia, Katherine in the Northern Territory and the Three Capes Walk in Tasmania, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Join Migration Alliance at our Christmas Yum Cha Luncheon tomorrow. Details below.

Migrants entering Australia on the new entrepreneur visa could be granted permanent residence if their ventures are commercially successful, says immigration minister, Peter Dutton.

Australian diplomatic staff in some 60 countries are on the lookout for entrepreneurial talent and encouraging them to ready themselves for the new entrepreneur visa which is expected to be introduced next year, according to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Readying themselves will mean getting financial backing to kick-start their business venture in Australia. Currently, startups in Australia have great difficulty attracting funding, so the newcomers will have to find their own backers and show they can get their enterprise up and running on arriving in Australia.

"Australia has been this wonderful place to live but not a great place for startups,” said Murray Hurps, the general manager of Australia's largest startup hub Fishburners noting that there is not enough local funding for startups particularly to get them through the early stages of business development.

Speaking to a group of young entrepreneurs in Sydney, Mr Dutton said that ideas, funding and actual success will be needed to achieve permanent residence in Australia – “the key then to becoming an Australian citizen is whether or not it goes on to success," said Mr Dutton.

OK everyone, can we have a show of hands please? 

How many of you have a client, or a friend or acquaintance, who has been granted permanent residency and hasn’t bothered to get Australian citizenship? 

Speaking for myself, I can say: I do! The husband of my wife’s closest friend migrated to Australia from England as a child and has lived and worked here for decades, and he hasn’t gotten his Australian citizenship. 

There are weaknesses in ‘almost all aspects of the immigration department’s arrangements for managing visa holders’ compliance with their visa conditions, an independent performance audit has found.

These weaknesses undermine the department’s capacity to effectively manage the risk of visa holders not complying with their visa conditions—from simple overstaying through illegal working to committing serious crimes, notes the report from the Australian National Audit Office.

Over 7.5 million Australian visas were granted in 2014–15. However, while the department of immigration had some idea of how many people overstayed, it did not have ‘comprehensive information about the nature and extent of visa holders’ non-compliance with their visa conditions’, states the report.

It is estimated that about 15,550 people were overstaying their visas by between five and 15 years and 17,370 were overstaying by 15 years or more, out of a total of 61,980 over stayers in 2015. The report noted there were over 27.000 calls to the department of immigration’s Dob-In-Line but almost 30% were abandoned before being answered. The ANAO recommended improvements in the service level standards.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s management of compliance with visa conditions.