Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take that interjection from the member for Cowan. We know that academics need a bit of certainty. The government provided $1 billion in the 2020 budget, and I commend them for that, partly to cover the impact of falling international student revenue. Then, this year, basically with no return of international students in sight because of the bungled vaccine rollout, they have cut that funding and the pipeline is dry. It means that the students who would flow on for two, three or four years aren't coming—there's nothing coming down the pipeline.

It's hard to understand why the government has attacked universities as viciously as it has. We know that; we've seen a drop from 20 per cent down to 12 per cent. International education was the fourth-largest export industry before the COVID pandemic. It supported about 250,000 jobs across the Australian economy—and remember that's in the bush as well. We know that universities are major employers in regional areas; they support over 14,000 jobs—not that you'll ever hear recognition of this fact from the mouth of a National Party MP. In the city, universities keep communities afloat: it's good economics. But that's especially so in the bush. Every one dollar invested in higher education research and development is linked to a five-dollar return to GDP. Every one dollar invested in university teaching and scholarship from government contributes three dollars of additional taxation revenue. It makes economic sense to support universities during this pandemic crisis. But instead of supporting our fourth-largest export, the Prime Minister goes from one exercise in marketing spin to the next without actually achieving anything or doing what he's paid for—for doing his job.

There are more than 35,000 Australians still stuck overseas and more than 200,000 international students who can't get back to Australia for study. Some are holding on, but that is tenuous. The Prime Minister had two jobs: the vaccine rollout and effective quarantine, and he has failed in both. If he had done his job, set up national quarantine facilities and managed the vaccine rollout, those 35,000 Australians would have returned home by now and international students would be coming back to study rather than being poached by Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. They're poaching our students and poaching our fourth-largest export. Sadly, neither of those things have been achieved in terms of vaccine rollout and effective quarantine.

It's astounding that not only have the Morrison government failed to set up national quarantine facilities but they've failed to manage the vaccine rollout and failed to support universities through this crisis. And they made things even worse for universities with their Job-Ready Graduates Package. This scheme, introduced into parliament last year in the midst of the pandemic, was designed to cut Commonwealth funding to cover the cost of many university courses and, at the same time, to increase student fees overall. Universities—which, remember, have already lost more than $3 billion—will receive less money to teach some courses, like science, engineering and teaching. Those are not unimportant courses; some may say they are the very courses which form the backbone of a skilled workforce, of a smart Australia. Real funding for higher education will fall by 10 per cent over the next three years. Some students who commenced study this year face fee hikes of double the previous fees. Those students are going to be left with a mountain of student debt when they enter the workforce.

All of the actions and inactions of the Morrison government have consequences and one of those consequences is that it will make it harder for Australia to recover from the COVID-19 recession. I mentioned before that I've been speaking to many of the vice-chancellors of universities right across Australia in the past couple of weeks. What struck me as I listened to their despair was that there is still no pathway for international students to return to Australia. It struck me how badly this has been handled by the Morrison government. Several of the VCs mentioned the Prime Minister, early last year, telling students to go home. Remember that? Remember the Prime Minister saying, 'Go home'? It was a comment that perfectly bookends with Prime Minister Morrison's 'Where the bloody hell are you?' campaign when he headed Tourism Australia, before Fran Bailey, the then Minister for Small Business and Tourism, sacked him. Those two comments were horrible comments as a message to the rest of the world. I say that, particularly, as a Queenslander and being from a state that thrives on tourism. Some vice-chancellors were concerned that the Prime Minister's comment would be remembered by those students. They took it home. They took it to their hearts: students who were here at the time and whose view of Australia will be permanently soured when they could have been our best ambassadors, better than DFAT in a way because they're not funded. They actually go out to the rest of the world and sell Australia.

It's hard to be a leader during a crisis. It tests people. Cometh the hour, cometh the man or woman. It's a shame that we don't have a leader in this nation who is up to the task. It's not what our nation needs at the moment.

There's no doubt that the Morrison government has damaged Australia's world-class higher education system, placing thousands of university workers' jobs at risk and jeopardising Australian research. International student numbers are not going to magically return to full capacity when the vaccine rollout is eventually completed. I say that in the hope that it will be eventually completed. As I said, these pipelines are heading elsewhere, to Canada, to the United Kingdom, to the United States. It's going to take time to undo the Morrison government's mismanagement during this pandemic. Recovering from the COVID-19 recession is going to take world-class leadership. We're going to need a skilled workforce, and we will only obtain that by having world-class higher education systems.

Labor supports the bills before the House because they are likely to reduce charges on international education providers, but sadly, this small reduction in charges will only partly offset the hiked up fees facing providers due to the TEQSA legislation that is before the Senate this week. I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes:

(1) that the Government has damaged Australia's world-class higher education system, placing thousands of university workers' jobs at risk, and jeopardising Australian research; and

(2) the Government's actions will make it harder for Australia to recover from the COVID-19 recession".

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