No spin needed on desperation for residency

Overseas students are the new refugees, living on the edges of Australian society under the weight of visa difficulties, imminent deportation and reduced access to social services. They inhabit that ill defined landscape of unbelonging.

They increasingly staff the lower end of the labour market. In fact, within the hierarchy of the working poor, they are kings and queens. Ask any petrol station attendant, a car wash worker or taxi driver and there is a good chance that they are an international student.

Despite their plight, most of them would not have it any other way. The alternative of trying to eke out a living in their homelands is much worse. Government surveys in 2005 found that about 80 per cent of international students were satisfied with their experience.

While we celebrate the end of local class conflict and suggest there is a diminishing working class, international students are a reminder that the rank and file of the world economy has shifted. This is particularly clear when they present to the hospital, a space where the south meets the north. The staff consist primarily of overseas doctors from the subcontinent, nurses from the Philippines and Zimbabwe and cleaners from the Middle East. It is the flip side of outsourcing, an "in" sourcing of cheap labour to fill skill shortages.

When I see patients like the Bangladeshi student, there is an underlying tension infusing the consultation. His eyes suggest a mix of desperation, longing and envy. While he looks like me and has a name like mine, I inhabit a completely different stratum. It is as if there is an invisible border representing unfettered access to the developed world that is just out of his reach. For me, there was the difficult decision by my parents decades ago to board a plane and start a new life in an unknown land. And that made all the difference.