Student visa applications face greater scrutiny as cancellations due to fake documentation increase by three-fold. Overseas education brokers are being blamed for the threefold increase in the number of student visas cancelled by DIBP over the last two years for falsifying English test results and financial documentation. DIBP however is targeting students without announcing any measures to curb the fraudsters who may be encouraging and facilitating the applications.

The student visa is perhaps one of the easiest visas and quickest visas to obtain for a stay in Australia exceeding 12 months particularly under the streamlined visa processing program (SVP). However, the student visa advisory sector is also one of that is flooded with fraudsters acting as education broker who work unfettered and ungoverned by the professional code of conduct administered by the MARA. This is simply because DIBP  has not banned unregistered migration practice and still accepts applications from unregistered practitioners.

There is no requirement for such brokers who enrol students and arrange student visas to be registered by the MARA. Therefore there are no repercussions for flouting the law and even potentially misguiding students that all they are doing is ‘legitimate’. It is really up the prospective students to ask the question, "Show me your MARA registration papers" or search the MARA Register of Agents before they part with their money.

Figures obtained by The Australian show 7061 student visas were cancelled in the last financial year, with 4930 cancelled the previous year and 1978 cancellations in the 2012 financial year. In addition the Australian notes that a DIBP also identified about 1000 “course hopping” international students, who arrived on streamlined student visas but later transferred to unaccredited colleges - a practice that is illegal.

DIBP however has decided to target students in its efforts to sort out this mess. There is no indication that it intends to do anything about their unregistered brokers.

Up to 25 senior managers at the Immigration Department will learn the news of their sackings within weeks, DIBP has confirmed. In addition to the purge of the top ranks, about 100 of Immigration's 530 middle managers at Executive Level 2 classification are expected to be clearing out their desks by the end of 2015, according to a report in The Canberra Times.

DIBPs new boss, Mike Pezzullo is expected to personally decide who exactly he will sack next month as part of the department of immigration’s merger with Customs.

“Insiders expect the casualties to be heaviest at Immigration as part of what is being called the "Customisation" of the department and a "reverse takeover" by the smaller Customs agency” states The Canberra Times.

A departmental spokeswoman told The Canberra Times."SES staff in both the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and Customs and Border Protection have been engaged in an ongoing process of assessment and feedback,"

"The future organisation structure and placement of staff is in development and will be communicated with the SES in early February

Fairfax media has claimed to have uncovered a widespread abuse of student visa holders by employers who are paying them as little as $8 per hour, an amount which is less than half the minimum wage of $16.87 an hour.

Foreign students, who have to quickly settle down to focus on their studies as well get some paid work with a limited skill set to cover high rents, are undoubtedly a desperate lot who are falling victim to unscrupulous employers.

Try asking a foreign student waiter what the minimum wage is in Australia. Chances are they would be clueless and some may even think $8 per hour is generous compared to countries living below the poverty line.

It has to make you wonder how well these sons and daughters are protected from other workplace abuses and injuries. Most are probably fearful of reporting it due to DIBPs tough stance on visa work conditions and some students are perhaps just unaware of their rights in the workplace.

According to The Age, in January 2013, Fairfax Media uncovered “a disturbing number of restaurants across Sydney that grossly underpaid staff and flouted regulations. The 40-odd premises paid workers as little as $8 an hour.

A teenager charged with doing burn outs which left a 60 year-old-woman in hospital has been taken to Villawood Detention Centre, with his bridging visa revoked, according to a Nine News report.

The night when the lower ranked Iraqi soccer team beat Jordon with a late goal in its first round match of the Asian Cup, set an 18-year-old Iraqi to do burnouts in a Fairfield carpark in Sydney.

Unfortunately, that episode allegedly led to his car hitting a 60-year old woman leaving here with a shattered pelvis.

The news report states that the teen turned himself in, was granted bail and released from Surry Hills Police Centre but only to be then immediately placed in the custody of immigration officials.

The man’s bridging visa has been cancelled and he has been taken into the Villawood Detention Centre, a spokesman for the Minister of Immigration and Border Security told Nine News.

It was not reported on exactly what grounds the man’s visa was cancelled.

The Government failure to address the shortage of workers faced by the regional tourism industry in Australia has had regional tourism operators now pushing for greater flexibility in the working holiday visa program in order that backpackers can extend their working holiday stay by working in the tourism sector.

Currently, travellers on a Working Holiday Visa must spend 88 days working in the agriculture, mining or construction industry to be eligible to extend their visa for a second year. Regional tourism operators are now pushing for changes to the Working Holiday Visa, so that backpackers looking to extend their stay could work in regional restaurants, caravan parks and motels, according to an ABC report.

However, vegetable growers are resisting the calls by the tourism industry to loosen restrictions on backpacker visas. Vegetable growers told the ABC that such a change would be crippling, making it even harder for growers to source enough labour during critical harvest and packing periods.

Andrew McDonald, a spokesman for the peak body for the vegetable and potato industry, AUSVEG said any change would have a massive and detrimental impact on the industry.

"We don't want to see that workforce diluted by having them potentially opt for tourism jobs over the agricultural jobs that are so important to our industry" says Andrew McDonald, of AUSVEG.

The chair of the Australian Regional Tourism Network, David Sheldon, said it was 'extremely difficult' to find enough qualified labour, and backpackers often had the basic food service and hospitality skills regional tourism operations need.