Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009 this afternoon. As I move around the world, as we all do, I hear about the high regard in which Australian education institutions are held, and that makes me mighty proud to be an Aussie. Some of the countries that I have visited, countries that would normally turn to perhaps the United Kingdom for their overseas students, have now begun to turn to Australia. That is why it is so important that we have a properly regulated education system and that issues that we have seen in the last year are addressed. This bill will certainly attend to those particular issues. That is why I think there is general support across the parliament, and so there should be, on this particular bill. The amendments that have been foreshadowed are very sensible and very helpful to this bill, the government and the parliament. I hope that they will receive the support of the parliament when they are formally moved by the member for Boothby.

I am very lucky that in my electorate I happen to have the world’s finest tropical university. The member for Jagajaga will certainly agree with me in relation to that because it covers Townsville and Cairns, and the member for Leichhardt will agree with me in relation to the Cairns campus of James Cook University. JCU excels particularly in the marine science area—it leads the world in marine science issues—and therefore attracts a lot of international students. We have Federation Fellows, ReefHQ, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian Institute of Marine Science—AIMS—at JCU, and the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility. There is a great body of marine science in Townsville that, in fact, leads the world. Of course, Townsville is the capital city of Northern Australia. It is Australia’s largest tropical city. The only way that Townsville has failed is that it is not on the weather map enough. Cairns is up there. Of course, you would not want to live in Cairns at the moment with its very high unemployment because of its dependence on the tourism industry.

In 2008 JCU had 1,681 international students on campus, with about 400 of those at the Cairns campus. That represented 12½ per cent, or one-eighth, of the on-campus student body, so international students are very significant. I am pleased the member for Leichhardt has joined us, because he and I together can sing the praises of the world’s best tropical university.

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