Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Education Services for Overseas Students (Streamlining Regulation) Bill and the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015, but I do so with some reservations.

These two bills seek to update the legislative arrangements to reflect the establishment of national regulators for post-secondary education. These include both the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency—TEQSA—which, as my colleague the member for Kingston pointed out, recently lost $31 million through funding cuts made by the Abbott-Turnbull government, and the Australian Standards Quality Authority—ASQA. Australia has one of the world's best university systems alongside other post-secondary education. It is something that we on this side of the House are very proud of. Students from overseas are keen to obtain their higher education in Australia because of this.

In international education, protecting the quality of the education provided is paramount to maintaining the high reputation Australia currently enjoys and, therefore, the industry. Why would overseas students go to study in countries that are unable demonstrate and deliver the highest standards in quality of education services? They would not. One would argue that is why Australia is so attractive to overseas students. We know that the Abbott and now Turnbull government's agenda is to deregulate post-secondary education. This is what these bills are aimed at achieving; however, there are risks associated with these bills. That is why Labor is determined to ensure that they do not weaken necessary and effective protections for students—necessary and effective protections that were put in place under Labor after it became apparent they were necessary. So in removing those protections now, we are going into a space that we know carries risk because we have lived that risk before and we have lived with the consequences of that risk. This is a major test for the new minister and the new Prime Minister. They have to assure this parliament that with the passage of this legislation there will be no weakening or removal of protections that protect overseas students from shady operators in the international sector. And we cannot be naive in this place. We know these shady operators exist; we have seen the evidence of them.

So why do these protections exist? Well it is for very good reasons, for lived reasons, for lived experience. Between 2008 and 2011, 54 colleges collapsed. Fifty-four international education providers in this country collapsed, having a huge effect on 13,000 students. Of those 13,000 students who were enrolled in those colleges that did not provide them with the quality education they had paid for, only 312 got refunds from their education institutions. That had an enormous effect on the reputation of this industry in Australia. It resulted in a major crisis in our international education industry as enrolments collapsed. And why did this happen? It happened because of naivety, because in the Howard years there was a naive and lax regulation. This was fixed by Labor when it came to government, as seems to be the tradition.

It was Labor who established national regulators for higher education and vocational education. This problem was fixed, and we are now at risk of seeing those measures wound back. It was Labor who added additional protections to prevent students from being left out-of-pocket if a provider collapsed. And it was Labor who established the Tuition Protection Service, a national scheme which steps in when a provider collapses and either ensures an affected student can access another course at another college or provides that student with a refund for training not delivered. This is critical. Without those securities in place, there may be an impact on the number of overseas students who do enrol in Australia because those assurances are insuring this industry for Australia. It is clear that the measures implemented were effective; we can see that in the data. We can see that between July 2012 and December 2014, only 12 collapses occurred, and the numbers were clearly diminished because of the regulatory regime that was put in place. And in 2014 we only had three collapses. So the industry has recovered its reputation, and we are here today talking about possibly taking away the things that have led to the recovery of this industry.

We know that in this industry there are always new challenges. Only recently it was exposed that international students were victims of exploitation and sham contracting arrangements at Australia Post and 7-Eleven. This leaves no doubt in the minds of the Australian public—and should leave no doubt in the minds of those opposite—that there are those who will want to make a quick dollar at the expense of others and that any weakening of the regulations or of surety for students will add a layer of risk.

We know that the vast majority of people operating in this space and in this industry are reputable providers. Reputation is a very valuable thing, and once lost it is very difficult to recover. We know that the majority of providers are dedicated to providing the best education they possibly can. But it is these providers who operate within the guidelines, providing quality education, who suffer when the charlatans prosper, who suffer when, for one reason or another, there are collapses that leave students out of pocket. This damages the reputation. It damages the industry for those who are operating reputably and offering high-quality education.

We in this parliament need to make sure that the legislation we pass will give the regulators all the requirements they need to properly protect students. We do not want the situation whereby Australia's reputation continues to be damaged because of deliberate abuse of the system by underhanded, deceitful operators. I must say that I certainly hope that the Liberal Party has learnt from its mistakes under the Howard government, although I am not so sure that they have. Last time they were in office we saw nothing but inaction in this space. Now they are keen to further deregulate. It is not enough that they are trying to deregulate our universities with their plan for $100,000 degrees. Now we have this piece of legislation showing deregulation under the name of a diminishing of red tape, which I find extraordinary. I find it extraordinary when we use red tape in place of—in this case—surety: to ensure that students are getting what they have paid for, putting in place for those students some protections that ultimately protect the industry itself. Similarly, we hear the suggestion that occupational health and safety is somehow red tape in the industry. This can be misleading—and in this case it certainly is.

So, we have concerns about elements of these bills. Given the importance of this matter, this legislation requires further consideration and scrutiny to ensure that there are not further unintended consequences, because at the end of the day both sides of this House want to ensure that student protections are not weakened or completely lost and that our higher education international student industry is not diminished. That is why we are pleased to see that the bill has been referred to a Senate Legislation Committee for the scrutiny it deserves. We will be playing close attention as it travels through the houses and will be looking to see whether amendments are required to ensure that all international students studying in this country are protected, no matter where they come from.

I will finish my comments by reminding the House that our international education industry is currently the third biggest industry in this country. Surely that means that it is deserving of a level of scrutiny and a level of surety that robust protections are in place for the industry, for the students and for our international reputation in this space. It is not just in economic terms that this industry is valuable. It is obviously valuable in face-to-face, people-to-people relationships with our international neighbours in our tertiary sector. It is incredibly important. We do not want to see protections watered down, and we are very wary of unintended consequences.

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