Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My remarks on this legislation will be brief. Nonetheless, I rise to support it and its objectives around making sure that those who seek to come to Australia to pursue opportunities for education are able to do so in a flexible framework. The government recognises and respects the visa classes and arrangements necessary for them to be able to do so. When I speak to people in the Goldstein electorate, I find that, as is true in any other part of the country, more than anything else, when Australians think about those who come to this country, what they want are the foundations to be laid for them to be good and responsible contributors to our country. Of course, education is a critical pathway that Liberals have always understood. It is essential to the development of successful and responsible individuals so that they are able to support themselves and their families. We have seen the potential of education, not just as an empowerer of people but also as an empowerer of a sector of the economy, to be part of the strength of export industries that can provide assistance and support and a mutual benefit to Australians as well.

Currently, we have legislative restrictions which raise questions and doubts about the eligibility of people to access the Higher Education Loan Program based on their different visa classes. We want to make sure that for those Australians who are here and who have started the pathway to securing education by using that program that the structures exist to respect their decisions and their choices to study and learn and to take on the responsibility for the cost as it shifts with different visa classes, consistent with the legislative framework that this parliament has written out. Of course that means, particularly for permanent humanitarian visa holders, providing pathways for them to continue to engage with education so that they can go on, build themselves up and harden their contribution and capacity to contribute not just to themselves in Australia but wherever their life takes them.

Also, of course, it provides a pathway to security for our great tertiary institutions to attract students who can utilise the knowledge and the skills that they can provide as a basis for engagement with a cohort of students who may otherwise be denied. This is the foundational principle on which the Liberals have always approached education: to see and to drive excellence in outcomes and to see and to drive opportunity in terms of the structures of education so that it's accessible for everybody, and also to address issues of equity so that those people who may be denied or held back have pathways to utilise education for their own success.

This government is adaptable to the changing circumstances that people face when they're in Australia or when they take temporary pathways out of the country, for them to be eligible to secure an education that follows. With the other members in this chamber, that is the foundation on which I support this bill. We want to see those people who come to Australia able to realise the fullness of their ambitions, when they do so, wherever their life takes them—including through to the ultimate pathway of citizenship. The strength of our country is the sum of our people. If we have strong citizens then we have strong families; if we have strong families then we have strong communities; and if we have strong communities then we have a strong nation. That is the foundation of a Liberal vision for this country: one built on the foundations of strength, anchored in citizens, families and communities and not from those fiddling from Canberra down.

That's why this legislation is important: because of what it will enable and what it will empower. That's what we wish to continue to see into the future. I commend the bill to the House.

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