The Australian government on Tuesday promised a zero tolerance approach on dealing with alleged migration and education scams after a TV channel expose claimed that many foreign students, including Indians, were being 'duped' of thousands of dollars by dubious agents and colleges.
The Four Corners programme of ABC News reported on Monday night that hundreds of private colleges in Australia were offering courses such as hairdressing and cooking, luring Indian students with false promises of permanent residency.
The channel, which conducted a sting operation, also claimed that a number of migration agents were offering 'fake' work experience certificates to students. An Indian journalist working undercover with ABC to expose the alleged scams was threatened and punched by an unidentified man over the weekend, an incident that sparked an outrage in India.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the scams of ripping off foreign students would be looked into by immigration and education authorities and dealt with 'no tolerance'.
Speaking from Singapore, Smith told the ABC channel: "Of course, it's very concerning on both fronts. On the migration front, when we were in Opposition we did express significant concerns about the regulation of migration agents, and as a consequence we have recently seen a migration regulatory authority come into existence to regulate that industry better."
"But any of these abuses, of course, we won't tolerate and don't tolerate. And the cracking down, so far as the migration agents' regulatory arrangements are concerned, will assist in that process," Smith said.
The Four Corners programme said migration agents told the undercover reporter that she could buy a fake English language certificate needed to gain residency for between $2,400-4,100. The ABC said it has evidence that several agents were offering to help students cheat in English proficiency tests and provide fake experience certificates.
The report also claimed Indian students aspiring to be pilots have been left in the lurch by a Sydney-based aviation college as their dreams of acquiring commercial pilot license remained unfulfilled even after paying thousands of dollars.
The expose were the latest to hit Australia's $14.2 billion international student sector -- the nation's third largest export earner -- after 22 racially motivated attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney in over a month.
Migration Institute of Australia, a professional association of migration service providers, today strongly urged the government to improve the existing regulation framework, which it said was not good enough.
"The big issue facing us at the moment isn't the people that are currently being regulated, but what we haven't got is any real action when someone steps outside of the regulatory framework and is acting illegally," MIA CEO Maurene Horder said in a statement.
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