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Opinion
Tanaya Das 
Sometimes I wonder what the Department of Immigration is thinking and what it deems are its priorities. For some people it takes the form of an omnipotent being that can grant them their dreams or just as easily crush their dreams.
On one hand Australia encourages skilled immigrants to apply for permanent resident visas on the other hand makes the visa application procedure super complicated and the fees exhorbitant. On one hand international student income accounts for the third highest earning export on the other hand there is this ridiculous hoops students have to jump through before being given student visas.
The genuine temporary entrant criteria boggles one's mind! I mean logically any student who spends the kind of fees international students pay would want jobs that would justify the cost of the education, the highest number of students come to Australia from various countries in Asia. So to think that they are coming here just to study and then intend on going back to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, honestly who believes that? Its simple in Australia there is a pathway to stay on after completing their education that is the most attractive thing to most international students. And what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't someone want to stay in Australia? It is a wonderful country and most people are genuinely warm and welcoming.
Australia has a population of 22.68 million; visas for spouses and partner's of Australian citizens and permanent residents depending on the subclass, country of applicant and length of relationships take a minimum of five months to be processed compared to say France with a population of 66.7 million takes two weeks to process spouse visas. Kind of makes one wonder what is being done at the Department of Immigration doesn't it?
There are still thousands waiting to be granted their subclass 885/886 visas, some of these people have been waiting for four years in a limbo, many of them just leave Australia as they are tired of waiting. Most jobs in Australia require one of have full work rights and a substantive visa so a lot of these people have had their career prospects stalled because the department of immigration without any notice deemed that their applications were of lower priority.
So visa applications sit in limbo while the department updates the numerous number of forms visa applicants have to fill out. The latest version of the forms ask for residential addresses that go back 30 years, who remembers information like that? The forms ask for education data primary school onwards, honestly if someone was hiding something would they actually answer the forms correctly? They would just skip giving any adverse information, meanwhile most skilled people looking to migrate to Australia for a better future are forced to fill-out these ridiculous forms for days. How is that productive use of anyone's time?
The introduction of Streamline Visa Processing for student visas in 2012 was a wonderful idea that reduced the red-tape for students coming to study degrees at Universities. But then according to a few education agents in spite of applying for a student visa to study a University degree; students from certain countries are still asked to show access to funds amounting to $60000! Which student in the world has $60000 just lying in their accounts?
And now it seems like the Department of immigration is busy spying on people's social media pages and threatening them for expressing their opinions on private profiles. Seriously?
This may seem like a bit of a rant but a lot of people are just confused with the way the notoriously secretive department of immigration works. A little bit of transparency is not much to ask after visa applicants pay these ridiculously exorbitant visa application fees.
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