Australia curbs international students' families entry

Australia announces international students will not be allowed to bring family members to the country.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke outlines Canberra's plan to cut migration numbers.

The changes are designed to help bring net overseas migration numbers to meet budget forecasts of 245,000 this financial year and 225,000 each year thereafter.

Burke said, "for international students, we will no longer be allowing the attaching of family members for international students or for graduate visas.

Anyone who already has their family attached to a visa and is already here, we're not going to be breaking up families onshore. The ones who are already here, that'll stay as is for the, you know, until at whatever point they leave Australia, unless they end up being entitled to a permanent visa.

But we will no longer be adding to the stock of students automatically being able to bring family members over. We have special visa conditions which will still allow it for the Pacific and for the ASEAN nations, and for certain courses, for example, PhD courses, they'll be able to bring family. You're offered in a very different circumstance of life for those sorts of students than people are for undergraduate."