Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment Bill 2011 and the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Registration Charges Consequentials) Bill 2011. The coalition, as an organisation and as parties, do not oppose these bills. As the member for McPherson just said, with education being such a vital level of our economy now, we have to pay a lot more attention to it going into the future. Places like the Gold Coast and Townsville rely so much on education facilities. In fact, James Cook University as an organisation has in Townsville an economic footprint of some $500 million per annum. That is just one organisation. James Cook University has a campus in Townsville, a campus in Cairns and a campus in Singapore. Extrapolate that across the country and you will see just how big this industry is.

These bills aim to modify the charges for institutions registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students, CRICOS, to offer courses to international students. These changes will better reflect the costs involved with administering the registration process and supervising these institutions. The new cost structure is vital in ensuring that only reliable and trustworthy institutions are allowed to operate in the market of educating overseas students.

As my good friend and colleague the member for McPherson has just alluded to, the last thing we need to see as a city in Townsville, the last thing we need to see as a state in Queensland and the last thing we need to see as a country in Australia are pictures beamed home of international students being picked on, being vilified, being mistreated, being assaulted and worse. They are the things we have to watch out for. People must feel welcome when they come to this country.

The issue is of great importance to Townsville, where we have around 10 education providers registered to provide courses to overseas students. These are all exceptional institutions catering for both secondary and tertiary education. High schools such as Townsville Grammar School, The Cathedral School, St Patrick's College on the Strand, Ignatius Park College and Calvary Christian College all have a strong reputation for providing students with a rounded education that both local and international families have recognised. I pay special recognition to St Patrick's College, which offers a great boarding alternative for girls from the Torres Strait and from Palm Island and gives a great all-round education. The Strand is not a bad part of the world either. ames Cook University and the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE are also registered on the CRICOS. Both of these institutions are a credit to the Townsville education sector, offering high-quality tertiary education, often tailored to the region's unique tropical environment—one of the many factors that have helped them engage with students across the Asia-Pacific region. The beauty of TAFE is that it is across so many organisations; it goes so far.

It is often said that the nearest capital city to Townsville is in fact Port Moresby. We are closer to another country than we are to the city of Brisbane, our state capital. We as a city and as a region need to interact more with Papua New Guinea. Those states there need to be able to access our facilities in Townsville so that they can become better in their results when it comes to times of national crisis and emergency, becoming safer places when earthquakes, fires and cyclones hit. Those are the sorts of places from which students come to James Cook University. I was lucky enough to be present last night when the US ambassador spoke in relation to the universities all the way around Australia—from Flinders University to Murdoch University to Charles Darwin University to James Cook University to Griffith University—and the research that they are combining to assist with the way that we react to disasters and share information. I think it is a very positive thing.

I also want to acknowledge the work of Youth with a Mission in Townsville. YWAM is a global Christian movement that helps young people around the world. The Reef to Outback office in Townsville is run by Ken Mulligan, one of the nicest blokes you are ever going to come in touch with—but, by jingo, I will tell you he just does not let up. He will go on and on and on to you about his programs and how good and organised they are. YWAM has reached out to young people throughout Australia and South-East Asia and are currently very active and connected in the Townsville community with Papua New Guinea, working to improve the quality of life for young people in Papua New Guinea and help that country achieve its Millennium Development Goals. Training young people is a big part of YWAM's role, educating them on how to reach out and help youth with serious problems around our part of the world and, in doing so, strengthening our relationships with our neighbours.

Straight after Cyclone Yasi hit Townsville—we were hit with a feather duster in comparison with Cardwell and Tully, but we had a lot of people with power out, and people were without power for two or three weeks—the kids from YWAM were straight on the road, going into people's backyards and helping little old ladies in West End and pensioner couples. They targeted those people and made sure to get into their backyards and clean them up. That is the sort of thing that YWAM will do.

In relation to training, YWAM has a ship that leaves Townsville and goes to places in Papua New Guinea that cannot be accessed by normal health measures and programs. They go to the places where there is no electricity and there are no buildings, and they see people. People like Daryl Holmes from the 1300SMILES dental practice go up there; Dr Holmes will perform four days of nothing but extractions. We have people going up there to put glasses on other people or to talk about immunisation. The work they do with TAFE, with James Cook University and with all people trying to get a better result for our friends in Papua New Guinea is to be admired. The boat has gone around Australia and we are working very hard towards securing another boat to do more in that region.

All of Townsville's CRICOS-registered institutions like YWAM play vital roles in the local community, welcoming and nurturing international students and businesses into the city. Townsville is a very diversified place and a transient place. We always say that there are two locals in Townsville; they both drink at the Bellevue and no-one speaks to them. It is a great place because we are all from somewhere else. The thing that we have in common with the Gold Coast is that we are a place that people come to. Two of my three children were actually born in Townsville, but they did not have any grandparents there. I think the one thing that draws us all together as a community is that we do not have family there so we must reach out and engage.

International students also play a key role in Townsville and in Australia's economy, with the overseas education market creating local jobs and helping these schools and institutions provide more services to all students. You will see that happen more and more in Townsville as local builders and industrialists try to engage more and more with our first Australians and with our nearest neighbours.

It is nevertheless important that all the institutions involved in this market be as reliable as possible and provide services of the highest standard. Those in Townsville do, and the government needs to ensure that this is always the case. I am married to a teacher, and so education is very high on the debate list at our dinner table. My wife is forever explaining to me my failings in the area of education and how much better the world would be if we just focused on early childhood, because then everything else would fall into place. I will let you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that she is in fact an early childhood teacher. Fancy that!

Australia's reputation for quality education is second to none, and rightly so. We have a great country and a great education sector, but we must continue to improve and we must never lose focus on that. That is why so many families overseas choose to send their children to our schools and why so many overseas students want to further their careers through tertiary education in our universities. But we cannot afford to take this for granted. As the world changes and becomes more and more global, institutions such as our universities will be challenged by other universities and other institutions to maintain a service that is needed in the country and in the world.

James Cook University, with its work with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, is founded on the premise of life in a tropical world. Every course it offers has to have an emphasis on how it operates in a tropical world. That is where most of the people in the world actually live, and that is where most of the problems going into the future will be and will come from.

The market for educating overseas students has been vulnerable to the setting up of dodgy institutions that do not mean Australia's high standards or are financially unstable; I think that is what the member for McPherson was alluding to earlier. We cannot let the ball drop. We cannot let people offer substandard institutions, because if that happens then we all suffer; everyone in the sector suffers. You need only one bad story to wipe out the 3,000 good stories that we have to tell.

Both major parties agreed to maintain our reputation with a more robust registration process, and tighter supervision of registered interests is required. However, while supporting this bill, I caution the government on the problems that this can cause, particularly for the smaller providers. I have spoken to a lot of Townsville's registered schools about their international students program. he concern they repeatedly raised was the burden of administration they faced in trying to encourage as many international students as possible. This one-size-fits-all approach makes it very difficult for schools with only a small international program. Ignatius Park College, for example, takes only one or two students every year and does so for reasons of social justice. It recently had a student from Papua New Guinea, who was supported by a local resident for years 11 and 12. The school enrolled the student but was frustrated by the extensive administration needed to admit just one international student. Many similar schools would be prevented from offering services to international students. Surely, there is a way that CRICOS administration can cater to schools with small international student populations. They say to me continually that whether you apply to have 100 kids or one child in the school the level of paperwork is exactly the same. Much of the administration they have to do is already their core business. They are already a recognised high school and already recognised as providing the correct curriculum, and why they have to go back over that, providing reams and reams of paperwork, is beyond anyone's understanding.

The other concern they raised with me is a problem associated with student visas. The high Australian dollar is already making it difficult for schools to encourage more international students and, to top that off, students have to wait much longer to get a study visa for Australia than elsewhere. As an example, a student from Hong Kong can get a study visa for America within a few days; for Australia it takes a minimum of three weeks. We have to be sharper at the pointy end of providing services to make sure we are competitive. The United States of America, Canada and New Zealand all compete in this market, and it is far cheaper and easier for a student to get a visa to those countries than to come to Australia. I am not saying we should lower our standards; we just have to quicken the process. This is a hurdle that needs to be fixed if Australia's overseas education industry is to continue to grow. These bills allow for adequate funding to administer the registration process and supervise CRICOS institutions to ensure that they meet the high standards that the Australian education sector should be expected to meet. For that reason I do not oppose the amendments, but we must be careful not to overburden institutions.

I cannot let the opportunity pass to warn this government of the dangers it faces when it comes to research funding. James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science have had their funding capped and have had incremental funding cuts. So, while they are getting grants to run the ocean simulator and their boats, their fuel costs have been cut. They have a great boat there, but they cannot use it as often as they should. If we are to tackle climate change correctly and if we are to do the scientists justice, we must have access to the funds needed to complete this research. A carbon tax is not going to make it any easier for institutions like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which uses diesel. You can shake your head as much as you want, but a carbon tax will raise the cost of diesel to institutions that rely on science to answer the very questions that you are putting in front of us. If we want to act on climate change, we need these people to answer the questions for us and we need to give them access and funding to get out there and do the work. You cannot sit there and continue to make it harder and harder for educational institutions to do the research by cutting their funding.

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