Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not think that anybody denies the importance of international students and their education to our country—our economy, our terms of trade and the enrichment of our communities. This international education area, whether you want to call it an industry or a sector, has rapidly increased in the last decade. But the best examples of quality education have not always come with that increase.

Whilst some of this legislation before us will be supported by Labor, we are recommending that other parts of go to a Senate inquiry to be teased out to work out where the potential gaps are and where, under the guise of red tape, we might be condoning some of the dodgy practices that are currently going on within the international student higher education space. We need to ensure that there are safeguards around quality in order to maintain a high reputation in this space both nationally and internationally.

Overseas students need to know that when they come to Australia they will receive a quality education that meets high standards. But, reading the media reports about what has been going on in this space, it is clear that not all students studying here are receiving a high-quality education. For years we have heard the anecdotal evidence that has come forward. I am sure many people here have met international students who have terrible stories to tell about how they have been exploited, ripped off and had shocking experiences in our higher education sector. There is need to reform this space to ensure that when students come here they are getting what they signed up for.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 and the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 are a part of the Liberal government's agenda to deregulate and reduce red tape in the post-secondary education sector. As such, Labor is determined to ensure that any reforms do not weaken the safeguards needed to ensure that education standards for international students are protected. Why is it so important that we have these safeguards in place?

Between 2008 and 2011, 54 colleges collapsed, affecting 13,000 students. Only 312 students received refunds from their education institutions—and these are just the ones we know about. Since then, there have been more. On an almost weekly basis we are hearing more and more reports of these colleges across the country either collapsing or delivering students, who do not meet minimum standards of skills and qualifications, into careers in those areas of study. These issues, together with the information about colleges operating as immigration scams—something that a number of us have spoken about in this place—mean that now more than ever we need to ensure that we have the proper rules in place so that international students seeking a higher education receive what they have paid for.

The national regulators for higher education and vocational studies have proven to be successful. Between July 2012 and December 2014, 12 colleges who were not offering the quality courses that they claimed to have been were closed. But the number of closures was fewer than in previous years. With the right reforms in place we can ensure that we have the standards, we can ensure that the people going to those colleges do get the education they are seeking, and we can ensure that there are fewer collapses—and therefore fewer students having their courses cancelled at the last minute.

As has been exposed recently in the media, through evidence at committee hearings and through work being done in the other place, exploitation via sham contracting arrangements has entered into the space of international student higher education. Two examples that have received attention recently are Australian Post and 7-Eleven, where international students are being exploited. They are being exploited in the workplace and exploited through their study. This is the dark underbelly of the system that we cannot ignore. Yes, ministers like to stand up here and preach about the dollars that the international student market brings to this country, but some of that money is dodgy and is a dark underbelly of our community and our economy.

Some international students have become part of an exploited workforce. They come here with the best of intentions; they come here to study. They sign up in their home country for what they believe will be a quality international student education experience in Australia only to come here and find that the college is a sham—a small office somewhere in West Melbourne or somewhere in the backstreets of Brisbane—and then be forced or coerced into working for a dodgy labour supply subcontractor. Two of the cases that have made news recently have been Australian Post and 7-Eleven. International students being paid as little as $4 an hour have come forward. They have spoken out about their experiences and are seeking amnesty from the government so they can help us to try to clean this up—so that future international students are not exploited in this way.

I raise this issue because it is important that the colleges and the universities that are attracting the students take responsibility for what happens to them. They need to take responsibility, and this government needs to force them to take responsibility, so that people who come here to study receive a quality education, are safe at work and are safe where they live.

What has not had as much media attention as the 7-Eleven and the Australian Post examples is what is going on in our cleaning industry. International student education is a major driver of the Australian economy. As many people have said, it is, depending upon which figures you use, one of our largest exporters, earning over $15 billion in export income annually and supporting about 100,000 jobs. Those are the headline figures that ministers in this place like to stand up and proudly proclaim. But let us remember who is at the heart of that money they are so proud of, that $15 billion of annual export income: it is these international students. We need to talk about the experience that they are having here in this country.

In Melbourne, in Sydney and in Brisbane—in fact in every major capital city where we have large numbers of these international students studying—they constitute much of our cleaning workforce. These international students work for subcontractors or principal contractors. Whether it be at Crown Casino, at major buildings, or even at their own university, international students are the labour force of the cleaning industry in many of these places. How did they get these jobs working in the cleaning industry? Through the colleges where they are studying. They have signed them up for labour hire. They have signed them up for the course, they have signed them up for the job and they have signed them up for their accommodation. There is a dodgy scam going on in some places in the higher education sector that needs to be cleaned up.

I acknowledge that it is not just the colleges that need to do it. I acknowledge that the Fair Work Ombudsman needs to be involved when it comes to work rights, that we need to involve state governments when it comes to the tenancy arrangements, and that we need to involve the federal government when it comes to the colleges themselves. This is why we cannot afford to weaken the safeguards that are in place.

What has been the experience of the international students who are the labour force for so many of the cleaning companies, and the subcontractors of those cleaning companies, in our CBD? There was a report done by United Voice a few years ago in conjunction with the University of Victoria. It is a proper report that exposed this dark underbelly, that exposed what is going on in the cleaning industry. What they found was that some shadowy contractors could be defrauding building owners by agreeing to pay the proper rates but then paying their workers as little as $15 an hour. This report found that international students working for subcontractors were being ripped off by as much as $15,000 per year. The contractors were using methods like making the students get ABNs so that they could get round the minimum engagement requirement of 20 hours a week. They were also using arrangements where they would put the money into the students' bank accounts and then take it back out—we have heard that story before. These are people who have come here with the best intentions—to get higher education, a quality education—only to be exploited by the very people who recruited them to the colleges, signed them up for dodgy education and then signed them up to dodgy workplace arrangements where they are being underpaid.

Can you imagine how much these contractors are making when they are ripping off international students by up to $15,000 a year? These are people working for some of the biggest cleaning contractors in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and all our other major capital cities. In fact some of these cleaning contractors and subcontractors who hire international students clean the very universities those students are supposedly getting an education at.

Weakening the safeguards in this space will only make it harder for us to crack down on this dodgy underbelly of our higher education system, on this terrible exploitation that is occurring. I have mentioned what is going on in the space of work and how this government needs to ensure that there are safeguards in place for people at work. I have mentioned that we need to get on top of the colleges to make sure that they are offering a quality education. We also need to look at students' living arrangements. It is heartbreaking to meet groups of international students who may be living with 10 to 15 people all squashed into one three-bedroom house.

See this speech in context