Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. The instrument will list courses exempted from the ESOS Act through this instrument, which will be determined following consultation with the regulators, industry peak bodies and the international education sector. The Minister for Education and Youth's power to control which supplementary courses will be exempted from the ESOS framework will be exercised with a view to curbing sharp practice. The instrument will be disallowable, providing parliamentary scrutiny, of course.

The next question is: how will the oversight and quality be maintained? I'm sure again that members opposite will be talking about this question next up on the list. I assure them that the stringent monitoring and reporting requirements already in place in the ESOS Act will continue to apply to international students' primary course of study. Student will still need to meet existing requirements associated with their student visa, including progressing in their primary course. Domestic assurances including oversight by ASQA and TEQSA and coverage by the Australian Consumer Law will apply. These are peak bodies that can take compliance action against a provider for noncompliance, which is terrific. By making course exemptions through a legislative instrument, the government will be able to respond quickly to address exploitative practices as well as meeting the emerging needs of those overseas students.

The other question they may have—and I'm sure there's a member opposite I can see who's grinning with this question, no doubt—is: how did the department consult the sector? That is an absolute corker of a question—a very important question. A consultation paper on proposed arrangements for supplementary courses was released for public consultation on 25 September last year, 2020, with the closing date of 9 October 2020. The department received 44 submissions from education providers, education and student peak bodies, and industry bodies, and it held follow-up meetings with stakeholders to address key issues. These included ITICA, TDA, IHEA, TPS and the University of Melbourne. There was strong stakeholder support for the proposed changes and the flexibility for both providers and students. The Department of Home Affairs, TEQSA and AQSA have been consulted and support all of these measures.

How were providers refunded in 2020, you might ask? As part of the Australian government's economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, registered providers are not required to pay annual registration charge or entry-to-market charges for the period from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2021. Registered providers who already paid a 2020 ARC or EMC invoice from 1 January 2020 were refunded using the active grace provisions in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, which is known as the PGPA Act—lots of acronyms today—to a total of more than $10.9 million. These changes are necessary, and this amendment will enable a more effective and flexible response in the future from 1 July 2021 should further refunds be required, providing sector-wide support to registered providers in special circumstances such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, the ESOS legislation does not contain the legislative authority required to enable or permit charges to be refunded to those providers. Without this amendment, only mistaken overpayments of charges are refundable.

I'd like to finish by saying that the amendments will allow for sector-wide support only in special circumstances. The secretary has limits in place on his or her power to make payments under the duties of the position in the PGPA Act.

Finally, these questions have all been addressed in the bill, and I commend it to the chamber.

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