Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Hasluck for his comments on the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. He spoke of the importance of a quality experience for international students studying in Australia. I think the benchmark for this bill is whether we are able to maintain a quality experience for international students and for the international education sector in Australia and whether the quality experience is there for the Australian economy and ultimately for the Australian community, who can genuinely benefit from all of this activity.

This bill picks up reforms recommended in the Baird review. Mr Baird is the former member for Cook, and I acknowledge in this place as the author of this report. He is one of quite a number of former coalition ministers at the state and federal levels who have been tasked by this government to come and sort out problems. I commend the government for acknowledging the experience and input of Mr Baird, who is a good friend of many years with many insights into this area from his years working both overseas as a trade commissioner and in various roles he has held in the tourism sector, and in some of those I worked with him.

This bill amends the Education Services for Overseas Students Act to strengthen the registration criteria for providers of education services to overseas students and to introduce a risk-management approach for the regulation of these activities. The bill will also amend the Ombudsman Act to establish the Overseas Students Ombudsman, within the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

These proposed changes arise out of the report, as I mentioned, conducted by the Hon. Bruce Baird. They include a requirement for approved providers to demonstrate their ability to access financial resources to meet the requirements under the ESOS Act and to have a sustainable business model, capability and governance structures and the management to deliver education of a satisfactory standard. The new measures will add to the requirements of the originally passed ESOS Act as well as the recently passed Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures Act).

In addition, the bill will introduce a new strategy for managing risk in the private education industry. Registration periods for providers will be limited to a maximum of five years, and this bill will enable conditions to be placed on a provider’s registration when the provider is first registered or at any time throughout the registration period. The bill also allows the Commonwealth to take action without referral from a state or territory regulator and it introduces financial penalties for a broader range of behaviour, including unethical recruitment activity and the proper maintenance of student records. If the bill is passed, it will allow the Commonwealth to publish any enforcement action against, or the monitoring of, providers.

In addition, the changes in this bill include expanding the role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to cover complaints from international students that relate to private providers. The proposed new Overseas Students Ombudsman, within the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, will also provide advice to private providers on complaint-handling processes and, possibly, report on broader systemic issues across the international education sector.

Our international sector is of enormous importance to our national economy. It is claimed to be the third-largest exporter, behind coal and iron ore, and is worth some $16 billion to our economy. This is a contribution to our economy that cannot be taken lightly and it must be managed carefully. The growth of this sector has brought with it many challenges, and many of these challenges were unforeseen, I think, by both sides of politics. We have seen a growth in this area, spurred on by many encouragements and incentives that have led to a boom in this business that we have seen play out particularly in our capital cities of Sydney and Melbourne, but I think there is also a very strong industry in South-East Queensland. The growth of colleges, the intake of students and the incredible increase particularly in vocational educational student visas have been the driving force behind the growth of net overseas migration in the last three or four years. It has led pretty much to the increase in the proportion of net overseas migration in our overall population growth and, in particular, has led, even within our migration program, the growth of temporary migration in our overall migration path. Back in 1990, temporary migration accounted for only about 10 per cent of our net overseas migration. Today it accounts for two-thirds.

So this has become a very important component of our population growth. I would add that, whether by design, by default or by accident, the growth in the student population in Australia has been important not only in terms of the growth of the international student industry; it has also become very important as a form of temporary labour within our economy more broadly. You need only talk to anyone who works in the tourism and hospitality sector, or the construction sector or various other parts of our service economy sectors to know that people working to their limits of 20 hours per week, who are here on student visas, are forming a very significant proportion of our labour force. That is why, when the changes were announced some years ago to address issues that were also addressed in Bruce Baird’s report, it was not only the education sector that gulped when these changes were announced but also those who relied heavily on student labour, if you like, within our labour force who were also feeling the impacts.

So the impacts of these changes are quite wide. They impact on how our cities are operating in terms of the growth of the number of people living particularly in our CBD areas. It is presenting many challenges. There are a lot of people who have come on these visas who are in a very vulnerable position, vulnerable to all forms of abuse. I have spoken on that issue on many occasions. People who have come and are unable to sustain themselves in this country on a temporary visa are exposed to some of the worst forms of abuse that we see in this country. Everything from sex slavery to extortion is taking place, and these are very concerning trends. In my own discussions with both the public and private providers of education services I have found a very receptive, enthusiastic group of people who want to do all they can to ensure that their students are safe in our community.

The measures that are outlined in this bill that come from the Baird report are really about trying to restore some integrity to ensure this sector can be successful and sustainable. It is not going to happen without some short-term pain and we ask for the forbearance of that sector, which has grown so rapidly in recent times, to continue to work with this parliament to ensure that we can get ourselves on a more stable footing when it comes to our longer term support for this sector.

I would also make the point that the changes that have been introduced here are designed to address problems that have largely occurred from a migration perspective as well. I do not just mean the changes in this bill, but in particular the changes that were introduced previously. We have to be very careful when we are merging discussions about migration with discussions about education. One of the key elements that are addressed in these reforms is the issue of a breaking of a nexus between a permanent residency visa and a temporary visa for student purposes. I think it is well argued that the way that the system was working, it was effectively becoming a visa marketing exercise for some. Some very unscrupulous operators, both here and overseas in particular, were using the opportunity through the points test and other things to provide a pathway to permanent residence.

I am not one who thinks that a nexus between permanent residence and temporary migration is a bad thing in all cases. A nexus, like anything else, is a device that you use in public policy. You use it where it is appropriate and you do not use it where you should not. On the issue of a nexus, I think we should be following the Californian example when it comes to students and seeking the best and brightest minds around the world to come and study in Australia. We particularly want those high-end skills in this country that can make such a significant contribution in a whole range of areas. Whether it is in science, the social sciences, information technology or any of these areas, let us by all means bring them to this country and give them a great assurance that they will be able to go forward and have a head start on permanent residency. We should act like recruiters in our migration program to ensure we get the best and the brightest here to achieve that. So the idea of a one size-fits-all of a nexus, denies us those opportunities to pursue that. Mind you, though, at the other end of the spectrum, in lot of the vocational courses that we have seen, the presence of the nexus works against the integrity of our objectives in the migration system. It is important that we have a horses-for-courses approach when it comes to this issue and we ensure that we continue to avail ourselves of the tools of the nexus to be applied where we want it to, but obviously to remove it where we do not think it is of any advantage.

The other issue with the nexus is this: if you look back over the past 10 years, in every single year we have a shortage of chefs and cooks in this country; if you go back further than that, you will find it appearing more often than not. But now we have to deal with the problem in the education sector that in order to prevent people coming and seeking permanent migration under a chefs and skills component and coming through the student pathway, we have decided that the answer is to take chefs and cooks off the skilled occupation list. The problem is that we still have a shortage of chefs and cooks all around the country. No doubt—and quite clearly, as a result of the Baird report—there are issues within the hospitality training sector when it comes to the training of chefs and cooks who never went on to be chefs and cooks in our economy. But the answer is not to pretend we do not have a shortage; the answer is to ensure that we have the proper regulation—and the proper oversight, more significantly—because the regulation was not as weak as some might suggest. There was a real clear absence of oversight, particularly by state governments in this area, which enabled this problem to get particularly nasty.

My argument is that we need to ensure that we enforce systems, not create some sort of surrogate measure that potentially does broader damage to our economy, particularly, for argument’s sake, in the hospitality sector: by seeking to close down a migration loophole we create another problem for the tourism and hospitality sector more broadly, which the Restaurant and Catering Industry Association raises at every single opportunity to meet with them. So the issue of a nexus is not a simple one of one rule for all. We should be very clever in how we use the nexus and use it appropriately where we think it adds value and not where we think it does not.

The other point I want to make relates to the regulation of offshore agents. One of the things we found in the tourism industry when I worked in that sector, and one of the great achievements of the previous government, was the regulation of outbound operators out of China, which cracked down on some horrific abuses that were taking place in the tourism industry at that time. Why do I make that reference to this sector? Because we are seeing a similar pattern at play. Regulation is not something I normally get wildly excited about, but when regulation protects the integrity of a market then it is something worth pursuing. We have had a breakdown in the integrity of this market in terms of many of the abuses of this system that we have seen and that this bill tries to address on our side of the fence. On the other side of the fence there is a need for some attention.

In the case of the tourism industry, we formed an agreement with the Chinese government to regulate outbound operators out of China to ensure that the business that was being brought to Australia had some protections around it and was not being subject to all forms of abuse. Those operators could deal with the appropriate operators here in Australia. I think there is a very strong case to apply a similar model here for education agents who are sourcing business for Australia offshore. I would start with China and I would add India to the list of the two key markets where we need to get some greater common sense in working with those governments about the sorts of people we want to do business with in those countries for our education sector. I think this is a reform that should be pursued at an international level and that will give a greater sense of confidence about both how these things are going to impact on our migration program and how they might impact on the labour market. In particular, it will give the international education industry some confidence that they can plan for the future.

A further review is currently underway, not, I am sad to say, by another Liberal of great esteem on this occasion but by Michael Knight, a former Labor minister from New South Wales. I will leave it to the people of New South Wales to pass their verdict on that decision this Saturday. This review provides the opportunity for some further commonsense reform. The coalition is prepared to engage with that in the interests of ensuring that we have a strong international education sector.

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