Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 and related bill. I do so because it reaffirms the coalition government's commitment to reducing red tape and making it easier for private enterprise to do business in Australia. The bill does this in several ways. It removes unnecessarily prescriptive reporting requirements for private education providers. It levels the playing field between public and private education institutions by equalising accounting requirements and it removes inefficiencies in regulatory agencies, revoking the accreditation of institutions that fail to follow the rules.

The bill is the culmination of an extensive consultation process with the international education sector. An exposure draft of this bill was made public and comment was sought from stakeholders. Those consulted included education peak bodies; individual institutions across the schools, vocational education and training, higher education and English language training sectors; international student representative bodies; state and territory agencies; the Overseas Students Ombudsman; the Department of Immigration and Border Protection; the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, TEQSA; and the Australian Skills Quality Authority, ASQA, to name just a few. As a consequence, the final bill strikes an appropriate balance between greater freedom from red tape for the sector and improved compliance mechanisms for TEQSA and AQSA, the industry regulators.

For industry, it is estimated that this bill will deliver deregulatory savings of $75 million dollars per annum. The market for international education is a fiercely competitive one, so savings of this magnitude will be welcomed. It will provide a further boost to the industry that is already Australia's largest non-resource export earner, worth $18.1 billion dollars to the national economy.

It is important to emphasise here that the proposed changes do not in any way water down student protections or necessary quality controls. The industry understands that strong protections enhance the international reputation of Australian providers in a sector in which reputation is of fundamental importance. This bill merely retracts some unnecessary regulatory impositions contained in the former government's Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment (Tuition Protection Service and Other Measures) Act 2012, which contained amendments to the ESOS Act. It maximizes protections and quality for students while reducing unnecessary red tape.

I turn now to some of the key elements of this bill. The bill removes existing restrictions on institutions receiving more than 50 per cent of a student's tuition fees prior to the commencement of the course. Students will now be given the power to pay up-front if they choose to so. The bill also removes the requirement for private educational institutions to retain prepaid tuition fees in a designated account until the commencement of the course. This requirement limits the competitiveness of private providers relative to public sector institutions, which have faced no such restrictions. With this bill, the practice of requiring institutions to report a default by an international student within an unreasonably short period of time has been ended. Previous requirements acted as a barrier to students and institutions resolving payment issues prior to the formal reporting of a default.

The bill also makes a series of technical amendments that clarify and formalise the regulatory roles of TEQSA and AQSA. Importantly, compliance processes are further streamlined by allowing for an institution's accreditation or its registration to deliver courses to international students to be cancelled or suspended if the institution's registration under domestic frameworks is similarly cancelled or suspended. This avoids the duplication of a costly and time-consuming further review process.

More improvements to the integrity of compliance measures are introduced through clarification of arrangements for existing students when an institution's registration expires. The bill makes it clear that the institutions cannot recruit or enrol new students after their registration expires. This bill is an example of what can be achieved when a government listens to, consults and engages with stakeholders. It reduces the burden of red tape on industry, clarifies regulatory responsibilities and strengthens integrity measures.

It is vitally important that the competitiveness and integrity of Australia's international education sector is maintained. The sector is growing strongly and, with increasing demand from our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, has the potential to grow further in the years and decades to come. However, this growth is by no means guaranteed, and will depend on Australian institutions continuing to offer a quality product at a competitive price. This bill ensures that these ingredients for future growth are maintained and enhanced. I commend the former minister for laying the groundwork for this bill in the preceding years and months, and wish the new minister well in ensuring this bill's passage through both Houses. I commend the bill to the House.

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