Aus: Foreign students march for safety

Thousands of foreign students, including Indians and Chinese, have marched in Sydney and Melbourne seeking more measures from the Australian government on their safety, accommodation and travel concessions.

The protests were held on Wednesday in two states - New South Wales and Victoria - as they are the only states denying international students concession fares on public transport.

About 400 protesters marched through central Sydney to rally outside Parliament and in Melbourne over hundreds rallied to Parliament.

The protests coincides with a visit to India by the Education Minister Julia Gillard and the first public hearings of the Senate enquiry into international student welfare.

National Union of Students' president David Barrow was quoted by local media as saying that the federal and state governments had taken some steps to address the students' welfare issues but more needed to be done.

"After a decade of neglect, local and international students rally together to demand justice," he said.

Meanwhile, a senate enquiry on foreign students welfare held on Wednesday was told that public transport concessions were needed to help save them from violent attacks.

Federation of Indian Students of Australia continued to express students frustrations over discrimination, racially motivated violence and a lack of integration programmes.

A Greens senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, who is on the committee, supported the calls for the concession card.

"Various issues were discussed during the senate inquiry. However, it was disappointing to note that nothing was raised in regards to the safety issue," FISA president Amit Menghani, who also attended the 45-minute long discussion on welfare of overseas students during the enquiry, said.

He said issues pertaining to raising part time working hours from 20 hours to 24 hours a week were discussed apart from accommodation issue, travel concession issue and educational institutions and agents.

Senate enquiry on foreign students welfare that was held on Wednesday had been flooded with submissions from universities calling on Victorian and NSW governments to take more steps for their welfare.

The enquiry received 38 submissions raising the issue. "This current highly visible discrimination is often perceived as a racist money-grabbing exercise by state governments and certainly does not engender a sense of welcome and inclusiveness," Victoria University said in its submission.

Deakin University said the absence of concessions "not only imposes a financial cost on overseas students - many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet - but also creates a perception amongst these students that, despite the government rhetoric, they are not really welcome."

Council of Australian Post-graduate Associations has called Victoria's public transport concessions the worst in the country, because the state also denies postgraduate concessions.