International students pay twice as much as domestic students for public transport. Credit:Daniel Munoz Student travel concessions are also denied to New Zealand citizens, even though they are considered domestic students under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. Every state government in Australia has seen fit to allow international students travel concessions, except for Victoria and NSW. So, while the NSW budget is in the black, the state government appears quite happy to put the budget of international students fairly and squarely in the red. The cost of living in Sydney and high rents have forced many international students into the outer suburbs, according to Hannah Eltern, an international officer on the University of Sydney's Students' Representative Council.

She came to Sydney from Germany to pursue a degree in international relations. Through her experiences and those of students she has met through the council, she has seen the impact of travel costs first-hand. According to Eltern, because international students pay twice as much as domestic students for public transport it often means that even an affordable room in a suburb far from the university does not save them any money. What many people don't realise is that international students are not all from wealthy backgrounds. Many come from lower-middle-class families who have worked long hours and spent most of their life savings on this opportunity for their children – a world-class education in Australia, which will open up doors that simply don't exist in their home countries. Other international students spend their evenings and weekends working whatever job they can find, even if it only pays half the minimum wage, just so they can scrape by. Still others live in shipping containers, garages, or restaurant toilets because illegal student accommodation is the only option they can afford in the Sydney rental market. So how did NSW get to the point where it legislated against international students just to scrape in an extra $12 million? This is especially pertinent when the same government happily wears costs blow-outs in the billions of dollars.

In 2006, international students at the University of Sydney took the travel concession issue to the state court and won. The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal ruled that denying international students the same travel concessions as domestic students was discrimination based on their race. But rather than complying with the decision, the NSW government passed legislation to make travel concessions exempt from the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. They then continued with the status quo. Students in NSW, both domestic and international, widely view the current policy to be cruel and unnecessary. As well as propping up our universities and supporting the economy, international students make invaluable contributions to the multicultural society that is Australia. We should be welcoming international students with open arms, not punishing them for being "other". More importantly, this issue goes to the heart of our idea of living in a country that gives everyone a fair go. Clearly, we are not giving international students a fair go, for the sake of a pitifully small saving in our state budget. It's time for NSW to catch up with the rest of Australia and extend travel concessions to all full-time tertiary students, regardless of their nationality. Kaitlin Alexander is a UNSW PhD student, a New Zealand citizen and an Arc Postgraduate Council member.