Australia’s governing Labor Party has flagged an increase to what was already the world’s highest student visa application charge, framing the A$2,000 (£957) fee as part of its “responsible savings” to help bankroll its election promises.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the A$400 increase, to apply from July if Labor wins the 3 May election, would generate an extra A$760 million over the following four years.

The new fee would be levied on all primary student visa applicants, apart from citizens of East Timor and the Pacific Islands, just a year after the government more than doubled the non-refundable visa charge to A$1,600.

But it would be lower than the fees promised by the Liberal-National party opposition, which has flagged a charge of A$2,500 – and A$5,000 for those enrolled at Group of Eight member universities – if it wins the election.

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The International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) said the coalition’s pledge had “provided cover” for the governing party to follow suit. “It’s been too tempting for Labor to yet again look at these visa fees as a source of revenue for other purposes,” said chief executive Phil Honeywood.

“How long can we have this constant jacking up of these non-refundable fees before it just looks exactly like it is…a money grab from international students?”

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Honeywood said an A$2,000 visa fee might be “sufferable” for students who had been considering high-cost courses in North America, following recent policy changes in the US and Canada, but would put Australia at a further disadvantage compared with education destinations that “still have the welcome mat out”, including France, Germany, New Zealand and the UK.

The US student visa fee currently stands at $185 (£139), with a mandatory additional $350 fee to support student exchanges. Standard student visa application charges are £524 in the UK, NZ$750 (£334) in New Zealand, C$150 (£81) in Canada, €75 (£64) in Germany and €50 or €99 in France.

Honeywood said Labor had “agreed to sit down post-election” and discuss IEAA’s proposal to halve visa fees for study programmes of less than a year’s duration, such as learning abroad and English language courses.

He said IEAA also wanted visa fee revenue returned to the international education sector rather than being quarantined for other purposes. Last year’s fee hike was ostensibly imposed to pay for migration and domestic higher education reforms, while this year’s increase would help pay for election promises like housing reforms.

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“It’s high time that some of this massive student fee revenue was hypothecated into issues such as overseas student welfare and other areas that have just been not funded sufficiently,” Honeywood said. “For too long, we’ve been told that it has to go into general revenue.”

The fee hike would earn the government an extra A$180 million next financial year, rising to A$190 million the following year and A$200 million by 2028-29, according to Labor’s costings. It remains to be seen whether international education demand will remain high enough to support these forecasts.

The number of student visa applications lodged over the first seven months of 2024-25 was 31 per cent lower than in the equivalent period a year earlier, according to Department of Home Affairs data. Commentators blame a raft of visa policy changes including last July’s fee hike.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com