‘Want easier path for Indian nurses to work in Australia’

India and Australia are fast turning into indispensable partners in the Indo-Pacific, buoyed not just by the success of the Quad grouping but also increasing cooperation in areas like education, defence, people-to-people contact and trade. Australian High Commissioner Philip Green sat down for a roundtable with TOI editors on a range of issues, including the return of Donald Trump as US prez. Edited excerpts:
Students staying back, and undocumented people
The Australian government and people are very unsympathetic to people who want to arrive without documentation. We have made a huge effort over the last 10 years to virtually remove that as a possibility and... that has helped undergird the support for the regular migration programme.
The

Australian High Commission

in New Delhi is the largest offshore visa processing unit worldwide. We issued halfa-million visas last year [including] about 50,000 students, and about 1,00,000 people for skilled migration. Australia has retained for India the right of people to remain after their study. The length of stay for Indian nationals, as agreed in the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, is as follows:

●Bachelor’s degree (including honours) – 2 years
●Bachelor’s degree (with first class honours in STEM, including ICT) – 3 years
●Master’s (coursework, extended and research) – 3 years
●PhD – 4 years
Skilled migration
The flow of migration between India and Australia continues at a good rate and is very much supported in our society. But there are some areas where, frankly, I’d like to see more. I’d like to make it easier for Indian nurses and other healthcare professionals to make their way to Australia. That’s an area where we have a deficit and you have something of a surfeit.
The way in which we think about it is that we have global rules which allow for people to migrate on the basis of skills. Indians tend, more than others, to meet those criteria.
Australian universities in India and mutual recognition of degrees
Two foreign universities have opened a branch in India and they are both Australian — Wollongong and

Deakin

. They’re both more than fully subscribed. One more Australian university, University of Western Sydney, has announced that it will open a campus here in Noida. I’m very confident that we will be announcing more Australian universities opening campuses in India before too long.
On recognition of degrees, that’s a university-to-university province. And it would not be normal for one university to recognise a whole slate of degrees from another university. What is really good is what is called articulation, when typically somebody does a year or two here in India and then transfers and does a year or two in Australia and gets a degree from both of those universities together. And I think that’s where the future lies.
Bilateral ties
I came here with a mandate from our PM to drive [our relationship] as far and fast as we possibly could. And we’ve had good progress over a year and a bit that I’ve been here. From our perspective, there are three fundamental drivers behind this bilateral relationship: the first is strategic alignment. We see India as indispensable to framing a balance in our region that is sustainable.
The second is our economic complementarity. India is the fastest growing big economy in the world. We confidently predict it’ll be the third biggest economy by 2030. [That’s] of particular interest to us... because we’re neighbours [and also] a highly complementary economy. We naturally produce the sort of things that India will need for the next generation of its growth. Energy is obvious. Minerals, especially critical minerals, and skills and training.
You will have seen how successful we have been in attracting students from all around the world. And Indians particularly. Now, over 1,30,000 Indians are studying in Australia.
The third driver of our relationship is what we describe as a human bridge. The fact that there are now a million people of Indian origin who live in Australia. We’ve only got 26 million on the continent. It’s the fastest-growing ethnic group in Australia. Indian languages are the fastest-growing language group in Australia.
Scope of a full trade pact
The first phase of our trade agreement is going very well and that has given us greater reason to want to conclude a second phase. Part of that would be in order to strengthen the supply chain in important inputs like critical minerals... and encourage our investors and yours to take a bigger interest in each other’s countries. A part of that would be for us to be able to provide a greater degree of cooperation with the Indian agriculture sector.
Anti-India extremists in Australia
Australia is a democracy and we take the right of peaceful protest very seriously. And people who live in our country are entitled to take their views to the public domain so long as, and only so long as, that doesn’t involve violence or some form of intimidation of other communities. The bit of it that I’m most closely involved in is the protection of Indian diplomatic and consular agents and their premises... and I am confident that our agencies are doing a really good job.
Adani’s Australia coal project
The coal project is doing fine for us. It’s producing coal that’s being shipped to India. My dealings with the group have been very largely in the field of renewable energy. We want people to take an interest in our renewable sector. We have a target of 82% of our grid being green just by 2030. That’s up from about 35% just at the start of this govt. Investors from around the world are looking at Australia as an opportunity.
Trump’s treatment of allies
I don’t see evidence of the US turning inward. PM Modi was the fourth major leader and there are many others who’ve made their way to the US in the few weeks since President Trump was inaugurated. It was evident President Trump was going to bring a different sort of character to his domestic and international dealings. And that’s the way it is.
Future of Quad
Our focus is on the Quad continuing to signal that these four democracies [Australia, India, Japan, US] are prepared to expend substantial effort to maintain an order in our region which is free and open and prosperous and resilient. Areas where we will be as active or more active in the future will include maritime domain awareness, critical technology and, particularly, undersea cables, and in fields like responding to humanitarian and other disasters in the region.trade agreement is going very well and that has given us greater reason to want to conclude a second phase. Part of that would be in order to strengthen the supply chain in important inputs like critical minerals... and encourage our investors and yours to take a bigger interest in each other’s countries. A part of that would be for us to be able to provide a greater degree of cooperation with the Indian agriculture sector.
Anti-India extremists in Australia
Australia is a democracy and we take the right of peaceful protest very seriously. And people who live in our country are entitled to take their views to the public domain so long as, and only so long as, that doesn’t involve violence or some form of intimidation of other communities. The bit of it that I’m most closely involved in is the protection of Indian diplomatic and consular agents and their premises... and I am confident that our agencies are doing a really good job.