Sydney, July 27 (Inditop.com) An Indian journalist working undercover to expose migration and education scams in Australia was assaulted over the weekend following which officials Monday raided the office of an agent allegedly involved in exploiting foreign students.
The Immigration Department said the raid took place in the central business district here, but did not identify the agent.
ABC News Online reported that the woman was attacked possibly because of her work. She was working on a report for the Four Corners programme.
“The woman was subjected to threats during the making of the programme and attacked over the weekend. Police have been notified,” ABC Online said. The journalist was not identified by name.
The Sydney Morning Herald said the attack took place near the ABC studios in the Inner-Sydney suburb of Ultimo.
The reporter went 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.
Executive producer of ABC news Mark Bannerman told Times Now: “For six to eight weeks we have been working on a story to try and understand the real state of the Indian… foreign students education market in Australia.
“The much more severe problem was the way they were in fact being treated by immigration agents and the colleges they had enrolled at.
“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”.
“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.
There are about 90,000 Indians studying in Australia.
The student victims have said the incidents seemed racially motivated.
Gautam Gupta, adviser to the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, said about the attack on the reporter: “It is an unfortunate attack… Most people are shocked.
“Our organisation has received threats in the past. I have personally received threats. It is a disconcerting development.”
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 licence.
“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.
“I think the government should be more alert in these type of matters because it is the career of the children which is at stake.”
Other Indian students have told the Four Corners programme that the aviation college failed to deliver its promised 200 hours of flying time over 52 weeks.
Aerospace Aviation’s spokeswoman Sue Davis has defended the training and has questioned the level of commitment and dedication among the affected students, the report said.
The programme also revealed unscrupulous practices by migration and education agents.
Karl Konrad, an education and migration agent based in Sydney, says he has been aware of a black market in dodgy documents for years.
“I had many students come to my offices and say, ‘oh I can buy letters for $3,000 at particular restaurants’,” he was quoted as saying by ABC online.
“They didn’t name the restaurants, but I was getting many of these type of stories. (So) we sent that information to the Immigration Department and they in turn thanked us for the information and said they would pass it on to Trades Recognition Australia. Nothing ever became of that.”
The journalistic 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.
Monash University demographer Bob Birrell, who has campaigned against linking diplomas with visas, has warned of a backlash from Indian students who feel they have been duped by the Australian government now that visas are harder to get.
“It’s unlikely they are going to leave Australia without a fight,” he told DPA.
