Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say that I am disappointed with some of the comments the member made. They sounded somewhat xenophobic. I find that interesting when Australia has control of the student visa process, whereas we do not have control of the boat arrivals, thanks to the member's government's policy in that regard.

Having said that, I rise to speak in support of the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012 which seeks to replace the current system of automatic visa cancellation for international students, in the event of academic underperformance, with an improved system that will allow each case of underperformance to be carefully assessed on individual merit.

With more than 39 internationally recognised tertiary institutions facilitating over a quarter of a million full fee paying students from around the world, Australia, since the early 1980s, has established its reputation as a major provider of tertiary education in the global education market. Once families across the world would dream of sending their children abroad for a top education at Harvard, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge. And, while the prestige of those institutions has not diminished, it is with great pride that we witness a rise in the teaching standards of our own institutions to the heights of worldwide recognition, with the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne and indeed the University of Western Australia consistently ranking in the world's top 20 and 50 universities over the past decade. Not only is Australia's emerging prominence in education a great accomplishment for international students, as it delivers them an excellent education at an affordable cost, it also remains our third most lucrative export industry, responsible for generating $18.6 billion in revenue for our national economy. My own electorate of Tangney is home to one of Australia's key academic institutions. Murdoch University educates more than 2,000 international students from more than 90 countries.

I rise to support this bill because of my personal commitment to promoting individual merit and because it offers international students a fair go. As the Migration Regulations 1994 and the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 stand, student visa condition 8202 means an international student's visa is subject to automatic cancellation in the event of a failure to meet course requirements. This is—and, until amended, will remain—a harsh measure that precludes international students from having fair and adequate time to adjust to a foreign education system and being able to perform to the best of their potential. This bill seeks to abolish this automatic cancellation system for holders of student visas who happen to be underperforming academically for whatever reason. The amendments will not only give students a chance to be counselled and perform better in future semesters, but also continue to benefit Australia's national economy by allowing our institutions to supply international places where there is significant demand.

Having been a university student myself, I have not forgotten the struggles and challenges of on-campus life. From having to work the irregular hours of shift work to many a sleepless night researching and writing, most of us can relate to the pressures inherent in the pursuit of a tertiary education, irrespective of field or faculty. I can only imagine how much harder it must be at times for international students from culturally diverse backgrounds not only to cope with the pressures of being a student but to learn to adapt to a whole new cultural atmosphere and adjust to an education system vastly different from what they would have been accustomed to in their home countries. No doubt, the challenges of adjusting to a new environment can potentially amplify the pressure on international students, ultimately impeding their academic performance. It would be naive to simply write these individuals off, construing their underperformance as evidence of a lack of intellectual ability. It would be even more naive to worsen their circumstances by imposing an automatic cancellation of their visa.

We must also bear in mind that initial failure does not automatically imply permanent failure. People can change, adapt and improve. Consider that the father of the assembly line, Henry Ford, went broke before he was able to successfully form the Ford Motor Company. Billionaire entrepreneur Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and failed in his initial attempt at business with cofounder Paul Allen and yet eventually created Microsoft. Walt Disney was once terminated on grounds of 'lacking imagination and good ideas', for goodness sake! The list of individuals throughout history who found themselves embroiled in some degree of early failure is quite literally endless. Scientists Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison, and statesmen Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln all experienced different failures at early stages of their lives, before emerging triumphant in their respective fields.

This fact stands as clear demonstration that we can never assume an individual necessarily lacks the aptitude for learning, intuition and development just because they happen to have experienced some early hiccups. In recognising this, the government charged Michael Knight with reviewing the student visa system in December 2010. Forty-one recommendations were made to improve the visa program. This amendment bill seeks to legislate 24 of those recommendations and quite rightfully determines that the breach of visa condition 8202 is not an inadequate indicator of a student's lacking commitment towards their studies. The Knight review also predicted that automatic cancellations could lead to some providers employing this measure ruthlessly, thereby bringing Australia's international education reputation into disrepute. It also found that the automatic cancellation process had become a subject of widespread criticism by the Federal Court. Between 2001 and 2009 around 19,000 cases were appealed and subsequently overturned. While it is appropriate to expect legal consequences in the event of a breach of visa conditions, we must at the same time uphold the ideals of individual merit and 'fair go' for all.

To this end, it is imperative to carefully assess the circumstances surrounding a given student's lack of performance. The present system provides no discretion to differentiate between committed students whose academic struggles can be improved with better support and assistance and those who seriously lack the aptitude to learn and are occupying a place that could rightfully be allocated to a worthier student. According to most recent statistics from Australian Education International, as at March 2012 there were 351,878 enrolled full-fee-paying international students in Australia on a student visa. This represents an 8.5 per cent decline since this time last year.

This decline coincides with the Auditor-General's report over the last year which found that more than 250,000 students had failed to comply with one or more of these requirements and had been issued with automatic non-compliance notices. None of these NCNs have been dealt with. In the first three months of 2011 alone, more than 30,000 new NCNs were issued each month. In view of this, it is not surprising that each of the 18 submissions from across the education industry made to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has offered wholehearted support for the amendments of this bill.

In the submission received from the Australian National Audit Office, the Auditor-General found:

… the ANAO concluded that the system of automatic cancellation was highly vulnerable to legal challenge. Automatic cancellations of student visas made between May 2001 and December 2009 were subsequently overturned, for all but five months of that period, by court decisions. The ANAO assessed that the complexity of the visa cancellation regime made it liable to procedural vulnerabilities, which would likely see it continue to be tested in the courts.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship itself registers its support for the bill, saying:

The amendments in this Bill are intended to benefit genuine international students in Australia and the international education industry more broadly. Under the discretionary cancellation framework that is intended to replace the automatic regime, students who are reported for a breach of condition 8202 will have the opportunity to explain the circumstances of their case and for departmental officers to make an assessment of whether a cancellation is warranted.

For genuine students, the abolition of automatic cancellation may allow changes in course or extra tuition as opposed to cancellation and exclusion from Australia.

Further, Universities Australia, in its submission says:

Universities Australia supports the amendments in the proposed Bill. In our view, these cancellations were ineffective.

The Migration Institute of Australia submitted that:

It is essential that Australia continue to review what is onerous, cumbersome and discouraging about the current student visa system as compared to traditional higher education competitor countries such as the UK, the US, Canada and New Zealand. International education is a hugely important export industry that is intrinsically tied to foreign relations and diplomacy, multiculturalism and transcultural exchange, and population growth and workforce skills and labour needs.

Based on the overall congruity of the Knight review and the unanimous support with which the 18 distinguished bodies across the education industry have supported this bill by making submissions to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, this bill holds strong merit. Pending the final report from the Senate committee due on 18 June this year, the coalition and I render our support for this bill in the name of promoting individual opportunity and individual meritocracy in a fair and equitable manner to deliver a fairer system of student visa assessment.

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