'Won't tolerate cheating of foreign students'

Sydney: Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has said the government "won't tolerate" any education and migration scam affecting foreign students, after such a scam was exposed by an undercover Indian reporter who was assaulted over the weekend.

Speaking from Singapore on the ABC's Australia Network, Smith said: "Of course it's very concerning... On the migration front, when we were in opposition we did express significant concerns about the regulation of migration agents, and as a consequence of that we've recently seen a migration regulatory authority come into existence to regulate that industry better.

"But any of these abuses we, of course, 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 was responding to ABC television's Four Corners programme that highlighted the unscrupulous practices of some agents who deal with foreign students.

Advertisement

The Indian journalist who was trying to expose the scam was assaulted in Sydney. After the incident, police and immigration officials on Monday raided the office of an agent allegedly involved in exploiting foreign students.

"The woman was subjected to threats during the making of the programme and attacked over the weekend. Police have been notified," ABC Online said on Monday. The journalist was not identified by name.

Advertisement

The reporter had gone to two migration agents posing as someone wanting to pass an English language test without having the skills and told them that she was willing to buy fake work certificates.

She learnt she could do both if she paid between $3,000 and $5,000.

Advertisement

Executive producer of ABC news Mark Bannerman said: "We began a pretty hefty investigation and the use of an undercover reporter... What we uncovered was a range of scandals within the industry."

Bannerman said the undercover reporter received phone threats indicating that "she would not be safe".

Advertisement

"Then on the weekend she was actually physically attacked on the street. We believe that potentially possibly because of the work she had been doing."

There have also been at least 19 incidents of attacks on Indian students or their property in Australia since May 9. The attacks, in Melbourne and Sydney, have caused an uproar in India.

Advertisement

There are about 90,000 Indians studying in Australia.

The student victims have said the incidents seemed racially motivated.

The Four Corners programme aims to "expose a number of cases where students (coming to Australia) have lost tens of thousands of dollars", ABC Online said.

To highlight the plight of Indian students, the programme spoke to the family of student Prabmeet Singh, who had spent over $40,000 on a course at the Sydney flying school Aerospace Aviation.

His mother Pushpinder Kaur said the family was now broke and her son still did not have the pilot's license.

"It is a fraud. We were shown so many rosy pictures about the school and it is not what it is really, it was just a scam," Kaur was quoted as saying.

The programme also revealed unscrupulous practices by migration and education agents.

The ABC investigation followed the spate of attacks on Indian students, which also prompted the students to take out rallies to protest the muggings and assaults on them.

Authorities said that Indians were the victims of crime because they were more likely than others to be travelling late at night on public transport.

Australia has pulled in many Indian students with its offer of permanent residency for those who gain diplomas in vocational subjects.

But then, due to the economic downturn, the government in December made it more difficult for those with vocational qualifications to become permanent residents.