January 5, 2026
Joint Standing Committee on Migration
Introduction
The Group of Eight (Go8) comprises Australia’s leading research-intensive universities. Collectively, we educate one in three international students and conduct around 70 per cent of Australia’s university-based research. This includes educating over 160,000 international students annually – an important pipeline for future permanent skilled migrants who strengthen Australia’s workforce. Go8 universities also employ international faculty who bring global expertise and connections.
Go8 universities sit at the intersection of talent development, world-class research and skilled migration. We attract, train, and retain global talent, ensuring Australia remains competitive and connected to international knowledge and innovation systems. These global networks are critical to safeguarding our economic position and preventing Australia from falling behind.
International education is more than a migration pathway – it fosters understanding, cooperation and trust, which underpin long term strategic relationships. This is why successive governments have invested in programmes such as the New Colombo Plan. Global connections also support regional security and stability.
The Go8 is therefore a vital bridge between building Australia’s own sovereign capability and facilitating the inflow of talent and ideas to keep our knowledge and skills base relevant, competitive and prepared for a rapidly evolving global environment.
Context
Australia’s immigration program has faced significant scrutiny in recent years. Rising global uncertainty, coupled with cost-of-living and housing pressures, has intensified debate about the value and scale of immigration —including international students, who remain a critical source of young, Australian-educated talent driving productivity and prosperity.
The Go8 supports a managed approach to student numbers based on integrity and quality. However, any discussion of student numbers must acknowledge Australia’s distorted funding model which forces universities to rely heavily on international student fees to offset shortfalls in research and domestic education funding. It is unlikely that an effective and optimal balance between international and domestic student numbers can be achieved while these significant structural issues remain.
The challenge is to manage migration settings with a clear understanding of the full value and purpose of skilled migration, while responding to public concerns.
Go8 Recommendations:
1. Recognise skilled migration as a national asset
Skilled migration underpins Australia’s global connections, regional stability, economic prosperity and talent pool.
2. Improve job matching for skilled migrants
- Raise employer awareness of Australia’s industrial relations framework and how to leverage networks and the knowledge base of international hires.
- Shift the skilled migration program further toward employer-sponsored visas which deliver better matching outcomes and fiscal benefits.
- Improve coordination of the State and Territory nominated visa streams by using labour market data and analysis from Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) to update skills lists, points tests and wage thresholds regularly.
- Address regulatory impediments to job matching, including through, as recently announced by the Treasurer, occupational licensing reforms towards achieving a Single National Market for workers, ensuring standards do not become unnecessarily restrictive.
3. Recognise international graduates as a strategic resource
- Acknowledge their role in addressing skills gaps and supporting national priorities.
- Invest in measures to strengthen domestic capability, ensuring sustainable workforce development. Current policy settings, particularly the Job-ready Graduates (JRG) package, act as a structural barrier to achieving these objectives, limiting flexibility and responsiveness in the higher education system. Reform is essential to unlock the full potential of both international and domestic talent.
- Establish a direct permanent skilled migration pathway for top international students completing post-graduate qualifications at Australian universities – targeting PhD’s in any field and Master’s degrees in STEM disciplines.
4. Maintain robust pathways for high level international talent
Continue programs such as The National Innovation Visa, which fast track global talent for world-leading researchers, entrepreneurs and innovation investors.
Conclusion
A progressive, talent-focused skilled migration system is critical to Australia’s future economic growth. Go8 universities attract and retain highly qualified researchers and educators, while educating international students who form a valuable pool of skilled migrants. These individuals drive innovation, strengthen industry capabilities, and contribute to Australia’s social and economic fabric.
Despite rising anti-migration sentiment, global competition for talent is intensifying. Countries are introducing faster visa processing, special visas for highly skilled individuals and permanent pathways for graduates in priority fields.
Australia cannot afford to fall behind. Nations that secure the best talent will lead in innovation, productivity, and economic growth.
With the right policy settings, Australia can continue to reap the benefits of skilled migration for national prosperity and global competitiveness.
Evidence and rationale for Go8 recommendations
The ongoing economic, social and cultural value of skilled migration to Australia.
The Go8 has consistently advocated that skilled migration makes a broad and significant contribution to the success and prosperity of the nation, tangible and intangible.
Skilled migration delivers substantial economic, social, cultural and strategic benefits to Australia. Skilled migration expands the nation’s human capital stock, helps address structural skill shortages, and enables Australia to participate fully in emerging sectors where global talent is essential.
Just over 1.7 million people in Australia are permanent skilled migrants. skilled migration has made a sizeable contribution to Australia’s workforce. According to the ABS, during 2022-23, permanent skilled migrants held 2.38 million jobs.[1] On average, permanent skilled migrants, relative to the total Australian population:
- Have higher personal median income.
- Are more involved in further building their human capital (as evidenced by higher rates of enrolment and completion of further education in Australia).
- Are more likely to be earning own unincorporated business income.
- Are less likely to be receiving unemployment benefits.
- Have commensurate home ownerships rates.
- Are less likely to have a significant proportion of their income directed to rental housing costs.
- Are less likely to have a long-term health condition.[2]
It is a core part of Australia’s global engagement agenda, diversifying our skill base, enriching our cultural landscape and global outlook, strengthening our diplomatic and trade objectives, and maintaining our influence and reputation within the region.
These factors have never been more important to regional stability and security. Multiple voices are now warning that Australia is facing the most challenging strategic circumstances since WWII; ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess recently noted that we have never faced so many different threats at scale at once.[3] Successfully negotiating these challenges will require a whole of nation effort, coupled with a whole of regional engagement strategy, to which our skilled migrants are a strategic asset.
Skilled migration provides benefits that are incoming – for example, by deepening our knowledge and skills base, which in turn drives innovation and economic benefit. This is reflected in the diversity seen in the recipients of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, [4] including:
- Polish-Australian Professor Lidia Morawska, for pioneering research into air pollution and airborne transmission of disease;
- Dr Vikram Sharma, born in India and now working on world-leading Cyber security solutions using quantum computing; and
- Professor Yao Zheng, who studied at the Nanjing University of Technology before coming to Australia where he has been recognised for groundbreaking research to produce clean hydrogen from seawater.
They join the ranks of other eminent Australian researchers, such as Professor Ian Frazer, co-developer of the HPV vaccine,[5] and Professor Fiona Wood, former Australian of the Year, both of whom migrated from the UK.[6]
It also provides benefits that are outgoing by facilitating global and regional connections – such as through participation in global knowledge routes, or the exchange of ideas, expertise and innovation that advance our own capabilities while promoting Australian perspectives and engagement. As noted in our recent submission to the inquiry into building Asian capability, these routes are as critical to our regional presence as traditional trade corridors, especially as economic competitiveness and prosperity become increasingly tied to research and technological developments.
Skilled migration is as important to Australia today as it has been historically, because economic growth predominantly relies on innovation and productivity, underpinned by the creation and adoption of knowledge and investment in human capital. Australia’s weak productivity growth would be far worse without skilled migration.
Australia also confronts other related challenges that skilled migration can help address – an ageing population, persistent skilled labour shortages, and a structural budget deficit. Skilled migration is essential to address these challenges and maintain fiscal stability – modelling by Treasury has shown that skilled migration is the most economically beneficial component of Australia’s migration program, with positive impacts flowing to government budgets.[7]
Recommendation: That the Inquiry recognise skilled migration as an important national asset, that underpins Australia’s global connections and relationships, regional stability and security, economic prosperity and contributes to our talent pool.
The effectiveness of current skilled migration settings in meeting the current and future needs of states and territories, while recognising the ongoing need for housing and infrastructure.
In 2022-23 the median personal income for a permanent skilled migrant was $80,166 compared to $65,557 for the total Australian population.[8] In addition, skilled migration has made a sizeable contribution to Australia’s workforce. For example, according to the ABS, during 2022-23, permanent skilled migrants held 2.38 million jobs.[9]
Permanent skilled migrants are prevalent in industries such as health care and social assistance (458,000 jobs or 19.3 per cent of jobs held by permanent skilled migrants); and professional, scientific and technical services (293,000 jobs or 12.3 per cent of jobs held by permanent skilled migrants).[10]
Despite the economic and fiscal benefits of skilled migrants, mismatch between skilled migration and workforce needs mean that labour market shortages continue and economic and fiscal benefits of skilled migration are not maximised. For example, according to JSA analysis, there were 139 workforce occupations in persistent shortage from 2021 to 2025, including 37 per cent of these related to professionals in health, early childhood education, and roles in engineering and science.[11] Treasury modelling also shows the lifetime fiscal dividend per person in net present value terms is 44 per cent higher for the employer sponsored permanent skilled migration stream compared to the independent skills stream which has the next highest fiscal dividend.[12]
Attracting skilled migrants—or retaining international graduates—is only the first step. Without effective mechanisms to match expertise with roles in high-demand areas, these efforts risk being wasted. Maximising the benefits of skilled migrants therefore requires a supply of appropriately skilled migrants that are efficiently matched to jobs in the labour market.
One solution is to raise employer awareness of Australia’s industrial relations framework. Anecdotal evidence suggests many employers mistakenly believe that new hires must have attained citizenship or permanent residency before they can be employed. These misconceptions not only block meaningful engagement but also deprive Australia of a vital source of skills and innovation. A concerted effort to engage with employers across the industrial landscape and clarify Australia’s workplace settings – combined with information on how to leverage networks and the knowledge base of international hires – could advance the use of migrant capabilities in the workplace.
Recommendation: The Australian Government improve matching skilled migrants to jobs in the labour market by:
- Raising employer awareness of Australia’s industrial relations framework combined with information on how to leverage networks and the knowledge base of international hires.
- Further shifting the composition of the skilled migration program towards employer sponsored visas relative to independent skilled visas. Employer sponsored visas have achieved better matching outcomes and fiscal dividends.
- Improving the coordination of the State and Territories nominated skills visa stream within the overall skilled migration program. This includes through better use by both levels of government of labour market data and analysis from JSA on (regional) occupational shortages; and use of skills lists and/or points tests or wage thresholds are updated regularly to reflect the state and workforce needs of the Australian economy.
- Address regulatory impediments to overall job matching in the labour market, including through, as recently announced by the Treasurer, occupational licensing reforms towards achieving a Single National Market for workers.[13]
The scope to more effectively target skills gaps and shortages in critical sectors to improve services that benefit Australian communities
International students may not be Australia’s only source of skilled migrants, but they are a powerful pipeline of young, locally educated talent who have already chosen Australia as their destination of choice. As noted in the Migration Strategy, international students comprise the largest component of Australia’s temporary migration program and are one of the largest inputs into the permanent migration program.
While precise long-term retention figures vary—from 16 percent (Home Affairs and Treasury) to up to 40 percent (Jobs and Skills Australia) [14]—the debate too often fixates on numbers alone. This narrow view overlooks two critical truths: most students who study here return home in the longer term; and many of those who stay hold the potential to strengthen Australia’s communities, fuel economic growth, and secure our future prosperity.
The House Standing Committee on Education is currently conducting an inquiry into Building Asia Capability in Australia through the Education System and Beyond.[15] As highlighted in our submission, Australia’s future as a middle power in the Indo-Pacific depends on our ability to engage meaningfully with the region. Yet critical capabilities such as language proficiency continue to erode. This is despite repeated calls to strengthen them since at least 2012 and the release of the Asian Century White Paper.[16] Alarmingly, as the Australian National University observes, “the number of students engaging with Asian studies and Asian languages has fallen to the lowest levels since 1965”.[17] This is not just an academic concern: it is a strategic vulnerability.
The Go8 is not disputing the need to strengthen domestic Asia capability. However, evidence suggests that reversing the current trend will be a longer-term undertaking, especially given current structural disincentives to Humanities studies that persist under the Job Ready Graduates (JRG) framework.[18]
Instead, Australia could widen its gaze to recognise international graduates as a powerful national asset. Department of Education data shows that the vast majority (around 90 per cent) of current international higher education enrolments in Australia are from Asian nationals, with approximately 41 per cent at a Go8 university.[19] Those graduates who choose a migration outcome therefore represent an immediate and strategic resource – highly skilled, culturally fluent and locally educated – ready to strengthen Australia’s Asia capability and enhance our regional connections and competitiveness.
Furthermore, international students at Go8 universities are concentrated at advanced study levels. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of Go8 enrolments from Asian regions are in postgraduate or higher degree by research programs, compared to just half (50 per cent) at non-Go8 providers. Many of these postgraduates specialise in fields where Australia faces critical capability gaps, including Engineering (where Go8 enrolments represent 57 per cent of the sector), the sciences (53 per cent) or agriculture and related (61 per cent).[20] While building domestic capability remains essential, Australia cannot afford to overlook this source of talent in an increasingly knowledge driven world.
Yet, as the JSA and the Review of the Migration System identify, there is no direct path to permanent residency for international students who graduate from our education system, and many former students become ‘permanently temporary’.
The Review of the Migration System observed that Australia has not sufficiently prioritised attracting and retaining the ‘best and brightest’ international students. As a result, both the Review and the JSA have identified international student graduates as frequently employed in positions below their qualifications or not in their field, and earning less than domestic counterparts.[21]
The Australian Government has responded to the Review by introducing measures to improve integrity in international education; increase English language requirements; restrict onshore ‘visa hopping’ which has contributed to students becoming ‘permanently temporary’; and strengthen and simplifying temporary graduate visas.
These reforms need to be augmented by establishing a direct permanent skilled migration pathway for the best and brightest international students achieving post-graduate qualifications from Australian universities. A stable, predictable migration pathway for high-performing graduates is essential to Australia’s prospects.
To provide targeting under such a program, applicants could be limited to international students gaining a PhD in any field or at least Master level post-graduate qualifications in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, at an Australian university.
The case for direct permanent skilled migration pathway for highly talented international students achieving post-graduate qualifications from Australian universities includes:
- Economic growth is increasingly driven by innovation and productivity, underpinned by the creation and adoption of knowledge and investment in human capital.
- Advanced training in critical thinking and problem solving enables PhD graduates to make substantial economic contributions across the Australian economy.
- The ongoing trend in Australia for more than half of projected employment growth to be in occupations where a bachelor’s degree or higher is required.
- The ongoing need for a highly skilled science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Many of Australia’s key national priorities – including the shift to net-zero, digital transformation, sovereign capability in critical technologies, and advanced manufacturing require an expanded and specialised workforce.
Recommendation: The Australian Government should:
- Recognise international graduates as a national strategic resource, acknowledging their critical role in addressing skills gaps and supporting Australia’s economic and social priorities.
- Invest in measures to strengthen domestic capability, ensuring sustainable workforce development. Current policy settings, particularly the Job-ready Graduates (JRG) package, act as a structural barrier to achieving these objectives, limiting flexibility and responsiveness in the higher education system. Reform is essential to unlock the full potential of both international and domestic talent.
- Establish a direct permanent skilled migration pathway for the best and brightest international students achieving post-graduate qualifications from Australian universities. To provide targeting under such a program, applicants could be limited to international students gaining a PhD in any field or at least Master level post-graduate qualifications in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, at an Australian university.
Approaches taken in other countries with similar migration objectives.
The Go8 acknowledges the need to balance Australia’s skilled migration settings against community expectations and concerns. However, this balance must not come at the expense of attracting the international talent essential to Australia’s competitiveness. Without maintaining a connection to and pipeline of international expertise, Australia risks falling behind in the global race for knowledge and innovation.
Despite skilled migration being a key policy lever for Australia’s benefit, migration more generally has become a political football in the wake of cost-of-living pressures and there is a lack of bipartisan support. For example, the impact of the spike in temporary migration caused by international students on housing affordability was overstated.
The Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed international students were only a small contributing factor to the increase in rents: “… the rise in international student numbers is likely to have accounted for only a small share of the rise in rents since the onset of the pandemic”.[22]
Canada provides a clear example. In 2024 it made headlines with its announcement of significant reductions in student numbers due to concerns about housing, health care and other population pressures.[23] Further cuts are now planned to 2028. Yet masters and doctoral applicants are explicitly exempted in recognition of their important contribution to Canada’s research ecosystem, innovation agenda and advancements in critical areas such as health care. Indeed, recent changes have included expedited processing for doctoral candidates, making it easier for high performing international research talent to study, innovate and build careers there.[24]
This strategic approach demonstrates a way of protecting community interests while preserving pathways for the world’s best minds to help advance Australia’s sovereign capability and economic growth. Failure to do this risks undermining medium and long term prosperity.
Because knowledge creation and human capital are both critical to productivity and long-term prosperity, Australia’s skilled migration program should therefore be embedded in a national research, development and innovation (RD&I) strategy that includes the attraction and retention of world-leading university employed researchers as well as entrepreneurs and investors into our RD&I system.
Attracting and retaining additional world-leading university-employed researchers will augment Australia’s already excellent research workforce to expand Australia’s R&D effort.
Attracting skilled RD&I entrepreneurs and innovation investors has been identified by the Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) as a priority for Australia’s excellent foundational research to have impact. The SERD has canvassed leveraging the National Innovation visa program to include venture capital and investment expertise as a priority while more broadly promoting Australia to skilled investment professionals.[25]
Global researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovation investors are a focus of the recently introduced National Innovation visa program. It is therefore imperative this visa program succeeds in providing a global talent fast track for world-leading university-employed researchers as well as entrepreneurs and innovation investors.
Success will depend on ensuring the National Innovation visa is well targeted and the selection process for applicants is both robust while at the same time providing a streamlined and efficient visa processing experience.
Success is not guaranteed as we have seen with the previous Business Innovation & Investment temporary visa program which was found to have inferior outcomes compared to other skilled migration streams, resulting in a negative fiscal impact per person under the Business Innovation & Investment visa.[26]
Recommendation: The Australian Government should recognise the critical importance of maintaining robust pathways for high level international talent, particularly at advanced study levels. The National Innovation visa program succeeds in providing a global talent fast track for world-leading university employed researchers as well as entrepreneurs and innovation investors.
[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2025a. Jobs in Australia. November.
[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2025. Migrant settlement outcomes, June.
[3] 2025 Lowy Lecture, https://www.youtube.com/live/CR8oXJ3Z7aM
[4] https://www.industry.gov.au/news/introducing-recipients-2025-prime-ministers-prizes-science
[5] https://about.uq.edu.au/experts/228
[6] https://australianoftheyear.org.au/recipients/professor-fiona-wood-ao
[7] Varela, P., Husek, N., Williams, T., Maher, R., & Kennedy, D. 2021. The lifetime fiscal impact of the Australian permanent migration program, Treasury Paper, December.
[8] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2025. Migrant settlement outcomes, 2025. October.
[9] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2025a. Jobs in Australia. November.
[10] Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2025a. Ibid.
[11] Jobs and Skills Australia. 2025. Connecting for impact – the jobs and skills report 2025, November.
[12] Varela et al. 2021. Ibid.
[13] The Hon Dr Jim Chalmers, MP, Treasurer. 2025. Treasurers agree reforms to increase competition and boost productivity, Media Release, 28 November.
[14] https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/research/studies/international-students-pathways-and-outcomes-study. Note that the JSA figures include international students across all sectors.
[15] At the time of writing. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Education/BuildingAsiacapability
[16] https://www.eastasiaforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdf
[17] https://www.eastasiaforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdf
[18] As noted in the Go8 submission to the Asia Capability inquiry, while the JRG exempts foreign language units from inflated HASS pricing structures, this still fails to recognise the criticality of broader HASS disciplines in building Asia capability.
[19] Australian Education International (AEI) data; enrolments are as of August 2025. “Asia” here incorporates the regions of North-East Asia, South-East Asia and Southern and Central Asia.
[20] Percentages refer to postgraduate enrolments from Asian nationals at Go8 universities as a percentage of the sector total.
[21] Jobs and Skills Australia. (2025). International students outcomes and pathways study, August.
[22] McCowage, M., Stinson, H., and Fink, M. 2025. International students and the Australian economy, Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin, July.
[23] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/01/canada-to-stabilize-growth-and-decrease-number-of-new-international-student-permits-issued-to-approximately-360000-for-2024.html
[24] https://monitor.icef.com/2025/11/canada-announces-new-incentives-for-international-recruitment-of-masters-and-phd-students/
[25] Strategic Examination of R&D. 2025. Investment and capital: growing investment and capital for RD&I, Issues paper, September.
[26] Review of the Migration System. 2023. Final report, March.
