Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill is the third in a series of bills to come before the House to amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 in response to the recommendations of a review of the act conducted in 2004. The ESOS Act 2000 was introduced to provide consumer protection to overseas students studying in Australia and to protect Australia’s international reputation as a provider of quality education services.

The government has an interest in ensuring the strength of the education services industry, which is the fourth most valuable export industry in Australia behind iron ore, coal and tourism. It has grown into a major export industry for Australia and now contributes more than $10 billion to the economy annually. Our private and public schools, intensive language centres, vocational and educational training bodies, private colleges and universities have increased overseas enrolments by more than 40 per cent to record numbers of over 350,000 students.

The ALP has been a strong supporter of the international education services sector since the Hawke Labor government first opened our universities to foreign students in the 1980s. It is with this 20-year history of initiating and supporting the Australian education export industry that Labor gives its support to the bill before us today. It is in that same spirit of support for the industry and concern for its ongoing viability and success that I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name which highlights some of the problems in the sector that Labor believes the government has ignored for too long and that threaten the value of an Australian education for international students and our reputation as a quality provider of education services:

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 that while there is a need to update the requirements for the provision of education to overseas students, it condemns the Government for poor management of the international education industry, including:

(1)

the threat to quality in Australia’s higher education sector as a result of the Government’s cuts to, and lack of investment in Universities, leading to undue reliance by the higher education sector on revenue from international student fees; and

(2)

a lack of action taken in response to recent examples of questionable activity in the overseas student area in both the University and Vocational Education and Training sectors”.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our reputation for quality is the key to the industry’s success and must be fiercely protected. It was that recognition that led to the establishment of the ESOS regime back in 2000. The ESOS regime governs the responsibility of education providers to overseas students who arrive in Australia on student visas in the higher education, vocational education, secondary school or English language sectors. The ESOS Act, complementary acts, ESOS regulations and the National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students, known as the national code, form the regulatory regime for international education. The national code has been revised and the new code will come into force on 1 July 2007.

The basic purpose of the original act was to ensure that education providers to international students adhered to consumer protection guidelines. The key components of the framework directed that providers must be registered with the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students, known as CRICOS; refrain from misleading and deceptive recruiting practices; be able to refund tuition in the case of the institution’s collapse; and be a member of a tuition insurance scheme to allow students to continue their studies at another Australian institution. Exemptions to this requirement apply to certain institutions, most notably those in the university sector. Providers must also report student breaches of visa conditions, disclose previous breaches by the provider and compulsorily comply with the national code and the act. In the case of a breach of the ESOS Act by providers, the Commonwealth has the power to impose sanctions such as the suspension or cancellation of CRICOS membership, as well as remove non-compliant operators from the industry.

Section 176A of the ESOS Act requires an independent evaluation of the act within three years of assent. This was carried out in 2004. The evaluation report was released in June 2005 and addressed quality assurance, consumer protection, migration policy and administration matters. The limitations of the ESOS legislation were recognised, and 41 recommendations for improving the effectiveness of its operation were made. Some of these recommendations were implemented in the 2006 amendments to the ESOS framework.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 addresses several of the recommendations put forward by the independent evaluation of the ESOS Act’s operation—namely, the addition of an objects clause; the extension of the ESOS Act to Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands; facilitation of course delivery across state boundaries; better reflection of the actual allocation of roles and responsibilities of the Australian government and the state and territory governments in relation to investigating breaches of the national code; recognition of the respective roles of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and education providers in the event that a provider reports a student for the breach of his visa conditions; recognition that written agreements with overseas students are mandatory; and removal of the late payment penalty for late payment by providers of the annual fund contribution.

The most straightforward change is the addition of an objects clause to clarify the main purposes of the ESOS Act. The principal objects are: (a) to provide financial and tuition assurance to overseas students for courses for which they have paid; (b) to protect and enhance Australia’s reputation for quality education and training services; and (c) to complement Australia’s migration laws by ensuring providers collect and report information relevant to the administration of the law relating to student visas. The objects identified are in line with recommendation 1 of the evaluation report.

Although this amendment does not in any way affect the operation of the act, it is a significant reminder to all involved in the education services industry about just what the ESOS regime is trying to achieve. Every provider and government authority involved in the education services industry has to appreciate their obligation to the sector as a whole in order to maintain and enforce high standards of both education provision and compliance with our migration laws. The failure of either providers or government departments to fulfil their role within the ESOS regime puts at risk the viability of other providers and ultimately the success of a multibillion dollar export industry.

The extension of the ESOS Act’s operation to Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands was likewise recommended by the evaluators. It was also proposed by the Labor Party in 2006, when the first tranche of amendments to the ESOS Act was debated. This is a good, commonsense outcome for Christmas Island that both Senator Trish Crossin and the member for Lingiari have been very vocal about for some time. The community on Christmas Island will greatly benefit from the extension of eligibility for CRICOS registration to include the Christmas Island District High School. This should assist in maintaining the viability of the courses at years 11 and 12 levels by allowing international students to bolster numbers. We should recognise the role of the West Australian government in negotiating the necessary arrangements to put this proposal in place and thank them for their cooperation in achieving this good result for Christmas Island.

The overseas students that education providers recruit and enrol are in Australia on student visas. In enrolling these students, the education providers therefore accept responsibility for the educational outcomes of these students. Under the ESOS regime, those educational outcomes are important in discharging the provider’s responsibility to the student as a consumer of education services. They are also important in discharging the responsibilities of both the provider and the student to the department of immigration. Students must meet certain standards of performance in their studies to satisfy the conditions of their student visas, and providers have an obligation to report students to the department of immigration when those conditions are breached.

The ESOS Act is as much about maintaining the integrity of Australia’s migration system as it is about protecting the rights of overseas students as consumers of education services. As a result of that intersection between education and immigration, there has always been some blurring between the roles and responsibilities of the department of immigration and those of the education providers under the ESOS regime. During the course of the ESOS review, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs admitted that it adjudicated on visa related matters on the basis of its assumptions about educational matters. The department is not best qualified to make these assumptions. Now the ESOS Act and the Migration Act are proposed to be amended in order to give education providers greater discretion in determining academic outcomes, such as attendance and course progress, which are designated as visa conditions.

The evaluation report noted:

In sum, the ESOS framework brings the full weight of DIMIA’s compliance processes into play too early in educational processes that should be the responsibility of the provider. The intention was to circumvent contraventions of the student visa programme by non-genuine students and unscrupulous providers, but it has placed undue burdens on genuine providers.

The new national code of 2007 has responded to this problem and sets out the process for dealing with students who are in danger of breaching or who have breached the policy on course progress. The students will have access to the provider’s appeals process and must be notified of external appeals avenues as well. A provider must maintain the student’s enrolment while the appeals process is taking place.

Once a student has chosen not to access the provider’s complaints and appeals process or withdraws from the process, or once the process is completed and results in a decision supporting the registered provider, the registered provider must notify DEST of the unsatisfactory progress as soon as possible. Thus, a student’s attendance at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship will be only to resolve visa status rather than to adjudicate on student visa condition breaches relating to academic progress and attendance. This will provide greater flexibility to the education providers in managing the educational outcomes of their students and also in making exceptions for students deemed to have compelling and compassionate reasons for failing to meet progress or attendance requirements.

While this is a more effective and realistic delineation of the responsibilities of the department of immigration and education providers, the greater discretion that it gives to education providers should in no way be allowed to weaken the obligation on providers to uphold the highest standards for students when it comes to meeting their visa conditions.

The requirement in the national code of 2007 for mandatory written agreements between students and registered providers concurrently with or prior to accepting money from the student also required some more changes to the ESOS Act. This will assist with providing further protection to students and ensure that they are covered by formal contracts. The bill also includes amendments to allow state authorities to approve arrangements for an education provider registered in one state to deliver part of a course in another state. That arrangement might involve an interstate provider other than the registered provider. The state in which the provider is registered would remain responsible for registering the course, approving the arrangement and monitoring compliance in relation to the course.

I note that the minister in his second reading speech gave some examples of where these arrangements might be used by both vocational education providers and universities to allow students to undertake study or work based training interstate. This will be especially helpful when there is a scarcity of industry placements available for students in a particular state. Those opportunities can now be created through arrangements with interstate providers.

I want to come back to where I started this speech, and that is to the objects of the ESOS Act. It is instructive to look at what the reviewers said in the evaluation report, because the objects that they proposed go further and are much more strongly worded than those included in this amendment. I quote from the evaluation report:

1.

To establish and safeguard a positive basis for promoting Australia’s international reputation as a provider of high quality education and training by:

a.

Ensuring that education and training for overseas students meets nationally consistent standards; and

b.

Avoiding the presence in the education and training export industry of providers lacking integrity.

                          …            …            …

3.

To support the integrity of Australia’s migration programme by avoiding the presence in the education export industry of providers that facilitate breaches of student visa conditions.

As you can see, that is much more strongly worded than the objects that are being included in the act. Those objects should be a constant reminder that the aim of the ESOS regime should not be simply to increase red tape in the industry for the sake of it but to actually empower providers and authorities to safeguard this industry and protect it from those who want to rip off students and corrupt our migration system.

Many in the sector who care about quality and care about the stake the providers have in the continued strength of the industry have questioned the value of more and more regulation without the commitment from the federal government to enforce its powers under ESOS. They ask whether regulatory control of all providers of education to overseas students is the most efficient mechanism for achieving quality assurance. There is an administrative burden for providers in many of the ESOS requirements, so they want to see that the cost to them is worth it by those requirements keeping unscrupulous providers out of the industry. More and more regulation is meaningless unless DEST enforces compliance and actively pursues non-conforming providers in the interests of both the consumer and the Australian public.

However, the current approach seems to penalise all providers instead of targeting those providers not up to Australian standards. For example, in spite of the tightening of regulatory standards in the ESOS amendments passed last year, there have been several cases of providers operating in a manner which threatens the reputation of the entire education export sector. The trouble is that the federal government has failed to act to prevent these shonky providers from undermining the value of an Australian qualification and the integrity of our migration system.

In Victoria, it was revealed that in June 2006 the Australian Crime Commission recommended an investigation into the International Business and Hospitality Institute—a private college in Flinders Lane set up in 2005 by two Chinese businessmen—over allegations of student exploitation and criminal conduct. In spite of this recommendation, the college remained federally accredited until 13 March this year, eight months after the Australian Crime Commission’s recommendation and only after the Age newspaper revealed this failure to adequately police compliance with its own regulations. Allegations against this institute included one student from China, Ivy Xu, being told to take a long holiday after classes ended prematurely and another, Wendy Meng Ying, being taught the same lessons over and over again before also being directed to take long holidays.

The Crime Commission acted following a meeting with a former senior manager of IBH, Robert Palmer, who claimed that he had also contacted the departments of education and immigration about his concerns but that neither had bothered to investigate the matter. The Crime Commission found substance to Mr Palmer’s claims, passing the information to the Australian Federal Police, who also notified the department of immigration in November. Ultimately, it was the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, ACPET, that stepped in and relocated the students to other providers once they became aware of the situation in February. Tim Smith, ACPET’s national executive officer, has voiced his frustration at dealing with the federal education department and the federal minister for education, saying as recently as this Monday in the Financial Review:

On each occasion ACPET has raised a problem ... with the department, there has been no reaction or a reply saying they are unable to do anything ...

Yet there is a raft of sanctions the government can apply against errant providers but it declines to do so ...

There are some questions for the minister when she sums up on this bill later. In a further embarrassment for the government, Tim Smith also revealed this week that ACPET had rejected an application for membership from a college in Sydney on ethical grounds but that the minister for education subsequently granted and exemption to the same college allowing it to continue operating. What is going on in this sector?

Similar concerns about government inaction were expressed in a joint peak body response to the draft national code made up of the Vice-Chancellors Committee, ACPET, TAFE Directors Australia and English Australia in late May 2006:

DEST is not using the authority available to it in dealing with unscrupulous providers, but rather has imposed more regulation on all providers in an attempt to resolve an area of substandard performance. That is, to date, the Government has not used the existing consumer protection measures available to it to protect the interests of international education.

This joint statement demonstrates the frustration that several peak bodies experience in the day-to-day operations of the ESOS regime. Clearly, microregulation of providers is an inefficient use of educational resources that constantly increases the administrative regulations and requires the diversion of already inadequate funding, thanks to 10 years of Howard government cuts, from teaching to compliance.

It is not like these warnings to the government are anything new. In June 2005 the Attorney-General presented a report to parliament that also highlighted that there was little evidence to show that DEST was proactively protecting students and the international education industry from unscrupulous providers. It is time for the government to stop paying lip-service to regulating a $10 billion industry and show that the compliance burden placed on all providers is matched by a similarly rigorous approach from the department.

There is much at stake for education providers across the sector, whose investment in staff, buildings, marketing and expertise is built on Australia’s reputation for providing quality education. In a highly competitive international market that reputation cannot survive the consistent reports of unscrupulous providers, dissatisfied students and questions over the standards of education and training. You just need to look at a sample from the last couple of months, February and March, of some of the things that have been reported in our newspapers. There was the headline about IBH in Melbourne: ‘Chinese students claim school said take a holiday’. Other headlines include ‘Uni staff not qualified’ and ‘RMIT caught out on $12,000 diplomas’. A headline in the Age on 15 March read, ‘Student hunger strike over treatment as cash cows’. That one related to the university based in my own electorate, Central Queensland University. As was pointed out to me by representatives from CQU this week, there are always two sides to every story. But the damage is done every time these stories hit the headlines.

As we acknowledged in our second reading amendment, we cannot talk about international education without raising the state of Australia’s university sector. Perhaps the reason the government takes such a hands-off approach to international education is that it knows it has created an environment in which education providers are in a constant scramble for revenue just to survive. In those circumstances the pressure to attract more and more students is on a collision course with quality standards but the government cannot face up to that reality. Cracking down on practices embraced by universities as a result of the government’s policies might raise some uncomfortable questions for the minister.

Labor has raised the shameful state of public investment in our universities many times, and once again we condemn the government for the massive funding cuts it has inflicted on that sector, which is so vital to our economic and social wellbeing. The Howard government has cut billions from universities, so what started as an opportunity to raise additional revenue and broaden the horizons of all students is now a matter of sheer survival for many universities. Professor Simon Marginson has produced figures showing that in 2004 five universities relied on income from overseas students for over 20 per cent of their revenue. These were Curtin, Wollongong, RMIT, Macquarie and UTS. CQU, in my own electorate, obtains 38 per cent of its revenue from overseas students. On one level, on the face of those figures, we can congratulate those universities for their enterprise. But a responsible minister in a responsible government would be asking whether those figures are sustainable and what they are telling us about the state of the university sector. What is the price we are paying to attract such high numbers of overseas students?

That leads us to the other issue that comes up in connection with international education: the relationship between an Australian qualification and eligibility for permanent residency. The ESOS regime is supposed to ensure that overseas students in Australia are genuinely undertaking the courses in which they are enrolled. But there are suggestions that once again this is being compromised by universities and private colleges in the desperate grab for students and revenue. It seems that there is a proportion of students who overlook the quality of the course, enrol and pay the money to get one step closer to permanent residency. On the other hand there are providers who will overlook the quality of the students, take the money and award the qualification. The question is whether this is going too far. We now have students who are not genuinely capable of mastering the course requirements who are graduating with trade or professional qualifications and seeking permanent residency on the basis of their Australian qualifications.

Monash University academic Bob Birrell blew the whistle on this problem last year when he released his research showing that more than a third of university graduates granted permanent residence in 2006 did not have sufficient command of the English language to justify university admission, let alone earn a degree. We cannot allow this erosion of the value of an Australian degree or qualification to continue. When confronted with these problems the minister usually attacks the messenger and then points to the ESOS regime in defence of the government. But the regulations have to be enforced for them to have any impact.

The race for overseas students that our universities are engaged in is entering very dangerous territory. Professor Marginson’s work in this area tells us that global higher education is stratified, with the top-tier elite institutions around the world attracting students on the basis of the name and reputation of the individual institution. On the other hand, Australian universities fall in the next tier. In that market, it is not the individual institutions that students recognise and judge but the country. When it comes to attracting international students, it is the reputation of Australia as a whole that matters. Very few of our universities have a strong enough reputation internationally to overcome the damage that will occur to our national reputation as an education provider if the current collision between funding and quality is not addressed across the university sector as a whole—and, indeed, across the entire education sector.

The minister cannot just assume that the revenue from overseas students can keep propping up our universities while government policies continue to undermine the quality of teaching and research. If the universities most under pressure to accept any and all overseas students keep doing that to stay afloat, the consequent damage to Australia’s reputation will bring down the whole industry. Any compromise on quality will lead the industry into a dead end, especially when competition for students within our region is growing stronger every day. We need to be out there in the international marketplace promoting the quality of our courses and institutions, not offering shortcuts to permanent residency.

Quality is the way that we will attract the best international students—and, of course, they are the ones we want. The best students are the ones who will be able to contribute to Australia’s skills base if they decide to become permanent residents. The best students are the ones who will return home with their Australian degrees and take up senior positions in industry, academia and government, where their strong relationship with Australia—and, hopefully, their fond memories of their time here as students—will be of enormous value. We will not get the best students if we do not protect our reputation for quality, and our reputation for quality is seriously undermined when the actions of rogue operators are allowed to cast a shadow over all providers.

I realise that in my speech so far I have not mentioned the students. We talk about the education industry here in Australia—and that is of great importance to us as an export industry—but we should not forget the students in all of this. These students, mostly from around our region of Asia, India and South-East Asia, are paying thousands of dollars for an education here in Australia. No doubt it often causes their families some sacrifice or even hardship for students to undertake their education in Australia, and we need to make sure that, when students come to our country and enrol with our universities, private colleges and vocational education and training providers, they are getting good quality education and the care that they need to overcome the difficulties of coming to a strange country.

We need to create an environment in those institutions, schools and colleges that promotes interaction between the overseas students and the domestic students. That is where the full value of the international student operation really comes into play. It is about sharing the cultures on campus. It is about making sure that the students who come here from overseas and from within our region are sharing their experiences and their cultures with Australian students and that, likewise, we are not only offering them the support that they need to complete their studies successfully but also making sure that their personal needs are met and that pastoral care is provided for them.

I come back to where this all started. The idea of offering education to overseas students was always built in Australia on that notion of the role it had to play in building relationships with the countries around us. By educating students from overseas and then sending those students back with their Australian qualifications to take part in industry and government within their home countries, we are constantly building bridges, using those students and their fond memories of Australia to strengthen the relationships that Australia has and needs within our region. So let us not forget that we need to take good care of those students. We need to provide them with quality education. We need to ensure value for the money they have paid for their education and we need to look after them on a personal level as well.

As I said at the start of my speech, Labor is supporting this bill—it is generally supported within the sector—but with this proviso: it is time for the government to pull its weight. It is one thing to impose regulation on the industry, but that regulation has to be enforced to be effective. The vast majority of providers are out there doing the right thing and putting the administrative procedures in place to ensure their compliance with the ESOS regulations, but the government has to be out there enforcing the regulations against those rogue providers who threaten the health of the whole sector.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had not heard the member for Capricornia speak for some time. Although relying heavily on notes, she gave a very good address to the parliament today on the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007, and I agree with much of what she submitted to us. Apart from the rhetorical default line of those opposite about more funding for universities, she essentially said a lot of the things I would also like to say. The reality is that this government has funded the university sector at a higher level than ever before. The reality is that there are more people studying. The reality is that there are more students coming from overseas. The reality is that there are more people involved in more courses. But you would not hear that from those opposite. For the people listening to the parliament today, it is important to state very clearly that the Labor Party has this view of, ‘Fund them, fund them, fund them and don’t ask them what they are doing with it and all will be solved.’ But the core reality of the education sector in this country, and the core fault of the education sector in this country, is that it is this supply driven sector that presumes that it has great knowledge of everything—‘Just send us money and don’t question what we do. Don’t question whether we are attached to reality or whether we are constructing or delivering courses in a way that is both time effective and in touch with the real world; just give us more money.’

I know that if those opposite are elected that will be their approach, because the academia unions are very strongly represented on the Australian Labor Party front and back benches. The crucible—particularly of the left side of Labor Party politics—the student unions, will demand a ‘no ticket, no study’ approach in Australian universities if the Leader of the Opposition and his fractured team behind him actually manage to get elected. I simply say that the university sector in this country is very strong. The glass is actually more than half full—not quite half empty, member for Capricornia. The reason that so much of universities’ income, including that of Central Queensland University—38 per cent, if I remember the member’s contribution correctly—is coming from overseas students is that the universities are attracting those students. I have been to CQU and I have seen the cultural diversity at work. There are kids from America, from parts of Europe, from Africa and from throughout Asia. Why? Because Central Queensland University is promising them an Australian qualification, which will stand them in good stead, and CQU is delivering on it. Why shouldn’t Central Queensland University get that business?

Much of what the member for Capricornia said, particularly her aspiration for all providers to be good providers, I absolutely endorse 100 per cent. I have a huge problem, particularly from my experiences as a minister in both education and immigration, with the way Australia’s education is presented overseas. My former departmental officers in Australian Education International will now be ducking for cover and thinking, ‘We know where he’s going next.’ But the bottom line is: there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Australia is positioned in the international education marketplace. Something is fundamentally wrong when you go to some parts of our near neighbourhood and they do not know about Australia; all they know about is Kangan Batman. You go to other parts, perhaps in India, and all they know about is Challenger. Perhaps if you go somewhere else, all they know about is Box Hill. That is terrific for those TAFEs—but not very terrific for Australia. It is terrific for the Western Australian education system, which registers Challenger TAFE, and it is terrific for the Victorian education system, which registers Box Hill and Kangan Batman, but it is not necessarily terrific for Australia. Nor is a qualification gained in Victoria or Western Australia automatically admissible in other parts of Australia. So we are actually selling them a falsehood. If we are not careful we run a real risk of not being able to deliver them a whole-of-Australia outcome.

You have problems not just amongst those who might set up a hospitality training centre in the backstreets of Melbourne—in Flinders Lane, as I think the member for Capricornia talked about. That organisation, I must add, is registered as a training organisation by the Victorian government, not by the Australian government. That is a point of incorrectness in the member for Capricornia’s submission. It is registered as an overseas provider, certainly, through CRICOS, the Commonwealth register, and covered by the Education Services for Overseas Students Act. But it is important to note that registered training organisations are registered state by state. There is no national registration, except for major enterprises that are responsible for training across a variety of sectors. Organisations like Qantas have rightly worked with the government through the former minister, me, to create an environment in which they are able to get a national registration recognised and working.

It is really important that we know that the need to have a true Australian qualification—not a state-by-state qualification—should be at the heart of what we do through the ESOS legislation. So I agree with the member for Capricornia. It is important how we position ourselves overseas. It is important that we actually have a single entry portal for students to come to Australia. If someone wants to be a plumber, or if they want to be a brain surgeon, they have to be able to come to an authority that says: ‘Here’s where the best courses are. Here’s where you can get that qualification. Here’s where, if you were an Australian kid, we’d want you to go.’ It should not be a case where you happen to meet somebody at an education trade show—or a trade official of DFAT. When I was in Vietnam a couple of years ago as one of the education ministers, the Austrade official said, ‘If anybody asks us about training, we just send them off to one of the state based TAFEs.’ What happens if they do not provide the best course? What happens if they do not provide you with the best set of qualifications? ‘That does not matter; we flick them off our desk.’ I do not think that is good enough.

I am very optimistic about the new Institute of Trade Skills Excellence put together by this government since the last election. Employers will be giving a star rating for the quality of training, for the quality of course outline, and for the quality of delivery approaches. It may well become a single entry portal. I raise that because it is absolutely important, as the member for Capricornia said, that this ESOS Act delivers certainty and quality. It is not just about small private providers. I remember a few years ago when my immigration department officials raided the Moreton TAFE at Mount Gravatt because they had bodgied the ESOS requirements. They were busy, as the member for Capricornia said, taking the money. The fact that people were not actually progressing their studies, let alone passing and excelling in their studies, was something that they bodgied up in order to keep the cashflow coming. There we had the Queensland TAFE people doing the sorts of things the member for Capricornia talked about. And it is wrong.

Nor can we have a situation like the one where—I will not name the city—at one of the great old universities of Australia, Chinese women students were being raped on campus and it was left to a Chinese community organisation to come to me and say, ‘We’ve got these kids coming to us needing crisis assistance.’ You cannot have these great universities saying, ‘We’ll take your money but you fend for yourself.’ If the universities value their names—and indeed, as the member for Capricornia said, Australia’s name—they have to provide not simply a place to learn but also all the necessary pastoral care and the understanding that people can get into trouble in other places. They are better off trying to build a reputation for Australia as a place where family care and concerns are met and your kids are safe to study. I think the impact of that particular series of incidents—some years ago, fortunately—has damaged our reputation in that important Chinese market.

The long-term future is not with China, because China is going to hit the wall with the numbers of people who are going to want to come to Australia to study. Already the trends are very clear that a decline in the number of students coming from China to Australia is just around the corner and that the big growth numbers are coming from places like India. And what are they in? They are in the vocational trades, which is the single biggest group of growth when it comes to Australia’s overseas education exports. The vocational trades and Australian trade training institutes need to be good at what they do and we need to have a national recognition system working properly, which this government is fighting every state government in Australia to achieve. Previously if you were a hairdresser trained in Victoria—this is the famous example—you could cut hair in New South Wales. That is not the case now, if you are under the age of 21, because of the stupid system of recognition they have in Victoria. It is absolutely important that we have consistency across the country when we try to sell our assets to other students to come from other places. There is so much more that we can and should do. I heard the Minister for Trade say the other day that the fourth biggest single item, on our trade figures, is trade in services in education. It is absolutely vital that Australia looks to underpin its quality, and that is what this legislation is very much about: underpinning the certainty and underpinning the quality and giving that guarantee to the students and particularly to their parents.

Griffith University, in my own electorate, is a great innovative university which has been around for about 35 years. It has been innovative enough to have associations right through the Asian markets, including up in the UAE in Dubai and places like that. We have even seen Emirates kids coming to learn at Griffith. We have also seen them learn how to fly at the Royal Queensland Aero Club Flight Training School and how to be part of the defence of the UAE. That sort of innovation, underpinned by certainty and quality, is indeed what the CRICOS Act is all about. We need to make sure that it is very clear to those coming from other places that it is not about the cash they bring but, as the member for Capricornia rightly acknowledged, the knowledge and experience they gain and the friendships they build. Australia can have an enormous amount of sway, I think, across this region as a result. When you start to understand Australia as being part of a region, you can also see where, if we get the quality measures right, we can take our international exports of education.

The Philippines education minister talked to me a couple of years ago about the fact that the only constant exports they have got out of the Philippines are people. That is what they have got lots of, and they export them around the world. He said, ‘If we could get the Australian system operating in the Philippines we could educate and train people based around Australian standards. You could export your expertise. You could export your standards to us and we could add that as a premium to anything we can train and teach kids in the Philippines. They might well be a ready source of employment that you may need.’ In Australia today, as you know, there is not a skills shortage; it is very much about a labour shortage. We are short on people. We have too many jobs and not enough people. Countries like the Philippines want to not only work with Australia and use our education standards to build their own particular capacity but also offer themselves as part of a regional response.

When I was in Taiwan a couple of weeks ago, the Taiwanese were saying exactly the same thing—that there are too many jobs and not enough people. They turn to countries like the Philippines to fill a lot of jobs. Yet here in Australia we still maintain—and this is mainly conspired by the trade union movement—that you cannot lose your job to an overseas person. What absolute rubbish. Are you going to shut a business because you cannot find enough people to do certain jobs that need to be done? During the Chinese New Year period, the Crown Casino in Melbourne shut down two-thirds of one of its restaurants because it did not have enough people working there. These are the sorts of labour shortages and skills shortages we have in Australia that can be addressed if we start to think about the full effect of the ESOS legislation.

The member for Capricornia criticised the RMIT just a moment ago. Let us look at the work that the RMIT has done. RMIT Vice-Chancellor Margaret Gardner was a former lecturer of mine at Griffith University.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Slipper interjecting

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She is not responsible, Member for Fisher. She would say that I was one of the ones who got away from her. RMIT have a campus in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, in Saigon. RMIT Vietnam offer Australian qualifications through their campus there. What is particularly important about that point is that RMIT, operating under Australian legislation as well as Vietnamese legislation, can get a four-year course through in 2½ years, because they teach 50 weeks of the year, not 36. Most universities and places of trade training operate about 36 weeks a year, Monday to Friday, 9 to 4, with 20 hours of student contact time a week. If the member for Capricornia wants to talk about efficiencies in the sector, she needs to know that in a lot of ways our universities and our trade training institutes are more like holiday camps to kids coming from other countries rather than places of efficient, effective and pressurised learning.

Kids from the countries that are coming to Australia expect to come here to work, and their parents expect them to come here to work. When they come on a student visa they are allowed to work 20 hours around our community as well as study. They are expected to work at study and to progress in order to stay here as a student. But we must realise that, unless our universities are prepared to offer on a more year-round basis the courses that kids are seeking, we are not looking as efficient as some of the universities in other countries. They still want to go to Harvard, Yale or Oxford universities, because those places are far more responsive to the marketplace demands than our Australian institutes of learning.

This act and these amendments are very important because they include an objects clause to clarify the main purpose of the ESOS Act and they deal with a number of other technical amendments. But it is really important to consider that the comfort zone has to be breached on this question of education services for overseas students. The country club approach to education has to go, and we have to see the huge public resources going into our university sector, in particular, and into our public training sector being used on a year-round basis and being made available to more students from more places as a result.

I want to make one last point on the specific provisions of this bill dealing with Christmas Island. Putting Christmas Island District Island High School within the system of CRICOS—the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students—is a welcome development. Those opposite are claiming credit for it, and if the member for Lingiari or Senator Crossin have been a party to it, well done to them.

I would also like to claim a little personal credit in that I have visited Christmas Island on a number of occasions and have been to Christmas Island District High School on one occasion. It is a great multicultural school that has kids from right across the region. There are regularly a lot of Indonesian and Indian faces. There are Islamic and Buddhist kids all working together with Christian kids. It is a very happy and very good school, and I think it is a fantastic environment to which kids from other parts of our region may care to come. It is a far more peaceful environment than people perhaps along the Indonesian Archipelago may find. But, as is often the case with any of this, it will generally be those from the wealthier parts of town who will be able to send their kids there. But I think there is an opportunity for Christmas Island to build on this and to create for themselves an enormous better-than-cottage industry.

Another point I will make about Christmas Island is that our Australian government environment people, the national parks people, who operate there and have so much responsibility for the biodiversity of Christmas Island, also introduced me, a year or so ago when I was last there, to kids who had come for their summer break from universities in Europe. I was speaking to people who had come from Paris, amongst other places, to see the biodiversity around Christmas Island and would love to have the opportunity to study there through our education system. They have not had that opportunity because of the way things have worked, and I hope that in time we will see that. Christmas Island, it is said, is like the Galapagos Islands in that it has an enormous amount of unique biodiversity that the world would be quite interested in. Frankly, as Christmas Island struggles to reconfigure its economy away from phosphate mining to other activities, I think education has a huge role to play in its long-term economic viability.

I congratulate the departmental officers who have been a party to constructing this legislation. I congratulate Minister Bishop on listening to me and, indeed, those from the Northern Territory who have parliamentary responsibility for Christmas Island in this matter. I will end where I began, and say that this act and these amendments are very important, but this act has so much more potential in the years to come. I do not think we work as hard as we can to get the dollars we should. There is great economic value as well as great societal value and, dare I say it, great security value that comes from more students studying in this country. (Time expired)

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are many articles on the education industry and many speakers have referred to its importance to the Australian economy. There are a variety of statistics tossed around—that it is a $10 billion industry and that in December 2006 there were 175,000 foreign students in our universities and 384,000 in our vocational and English language sector. In December, the Minister for Education, Science and Training noted that there were 1,250 providers and 26,000 courses. And there has been a statement made that there are 160,000 people involved in English training alone and that they are spending $1 billion a year.

Indisputably, therefore, this industry is very important to the economy and to Australia’s wellbeing. It is all the more important because of the sorry state of our foreign trade position. As noted earlier, it is the fourth largest industry after coal, iron ore and tourism—two of which, as we know, are raw materials. They are not in the first league of the future of this earth. They are certainly not in the training and skills sector. They certainly do not require that this country devotes significant resources to training, education and research—areas in which, anyone would understand, we have declined very considerably over the last decade.

It is all right for the previous speaker, the member for Moreton, to talk about the cap in numbers in our institutions. That is certainly not the full picture. The clearer picture is the dependence of these institutions on foreign students because of the decline in assistance. I noticed that my colleague the member for Capricornia, who obviously represents the Central Queensland University, said that there are two sides to this story in regard to criticism of that institution. I am afraid to say that the side criticising it is a lot stronger than those who are defending it. Whereas they might say that their contribution from foreign students is 38 per cent, others looking at their performance say that it is in the area of 50 per cent. That was in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article.

Indisputably, foreign students coming to this country is a positive, both for them and us. I recall being at a Punjabi wedding. The students, who had been here under the Colombo plan, had fond memories of this country and noted that our country in particular and our universities had been major contributors to the green revolution. The vital gains for agriculture in their country and, more particularly, the Punjab came from being here. Equally, I recall—on overseas trips with the foreign affairs delegation, when I met alumni associations in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Thailand—the wealth of good feeling towards this country, the experiences that people had, what they had learned, what they knew of the Australian people and their appreciation. There was a particular case in Bangkok, when Ian Sinclair, the father of the member for Hunter and I were at a ceremony at which about 100 Thai students came to us. Their pleasure and positive attitude towards this country is so great. There are so many positives from this.

However, I do not think that we can gloss over the fundamental problems and the challenges facing this industry. It is not only about the courses these students are receiving. We live in a society where half a million Australians are now leaving for overseas permanently. Despite the commentators, the negative people attacking migration, the vast majority of these Australians are not 70-year-olds returning to Greece, Italy or Lebanon living on their pensions; they are young Australians who are skilled and capable and who see a future for themselves in another society.

When we talk about foreign students and the issues here, we should also remember those young Australians. We want to ensure that, in the decades ahead, their degrees from Australia have credibility internationally, because they are out there in those overseas markets. Obviously, whilst we traditionally have been much respected in this sector, questions are now being asked. The member for Capricornia referred to comments by Tim Smith from the Australian Council of Private Education and Training. His interest is not in driving down the image of his industry. He is not out there to destroy its credibility. He is not out there to unnecessarily bemoan what is occurring. He is out there to ensure that the industry has credibility in the long term. When he raises the problems of Central Queensland University and a variety of other players, and when he questions how some of these institutions continue to be registered, he is doing so because in the long term they have to be faced.

One of the issues here is the interface with immigration. Bob Birrell has been in the media in the last week or so, but it was not in the last week or so that he first raised issues about this matter. He has questioned the level of English that is necessary both for migration purposes and to enter some degree courses. We talk to vice-chancellors and we have met people in the parliament this week. We meet friends of ours who are teachers in TAFEs and universities. They have come under pressure with regard to pass rates. They have to ensure that more people get through the course because they are told, ‘We want them back next year to pay money.’ But it is not only in those sectors, when people like me who represent strong non-English-speaking background electorates conduct migration interviews of people who come here to study, that we learn a big factor now driving this sector is not education per se but the wish of people to get permanent residence in this country. It is quite clear that this is now a decisive factor in why a number of people come to this country.

I refer to an article that Bob Birrell wrote in People and Place a while ago. He made a number of prescient points in edition No. 4 of 2006.  He analysed the English levels of a variety of people. On page 58, he noted:

Overall, 34 per cent of those visaed under the 880 visa subclass did not achieve the “competent”, band 6, English standard on each of the four modules. This group all reached 5 or 5.5 on all four modules of the IELTS test. If they had not reached this level they would have been ineligible to proceed …

He makes the point there about the levels of English required and the fact that, if it is on the MODL list, people can succeed at a lower level of English. On page 61, he makes the point:

According to DIMA’s student visa statistics, in 2005-06 there were 60,197 visas issued offshore which entitled the recipient to begin studies in Australia’s higher education or postgraduate research sector. All would have had to possess English language skills equivalent to the band 6 IELTS standard before being offered a university place. In the same year there were 39,045 higher education and post graduate research visas issued onshore. In the case of those from China, there were 11,115 offshore visas and 11,528 onshore visas. There was a similar ratio with several other non-English-speaking background countries. 

And further:

The implication is that East Asian students (whose English tends—

and he say ‘tends’; he does not say ‘is’—

to be relatively weak) had to find an alternative pathway into higher education in Australia that did not require them to first achieve level 6 …

The major point here is on page 63:

The overseas students themselves continue to enrol despite the impact that their English language shortcomings may be having on the learning process. They want a good education, but for a large minority the prime concern is to securely a credential which will lead to PR.

It is clear that that is driving a significant number of the students enrolling. I divert for a moment to deal with one point made by the previous speaker, the member for Moreton. He loftily told us that Central Queensland University—which has been indicted by most of the tertiary sector in this country in a series of articles and by other providers—is so attractive that it is getting people from Canada, North America and Europe. For some reason he chose those countries.

I would posit that the number of students it is attracting from those countries is quite small. Interestingly, with respect to the 2004-05 overall figure for Australia of 42,300-odd onshore overseas higher education student completions from North America or Europe, only Canada on 820 had any significant number whatsoever. It would be very odd if Central Queensland University, which so clearly went out there to attract students from Asia, went against those national statistics and somehow from left field recruited all these people from Europe and North America just because of its massive attractiveness.

We see the same issue in tourism. I was a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration for many years and I remember the industry driving to get rid of visas because they had a view that South Korean businessmen, when faced with going to New Zealand or Australia for a holiday, chose New Zealand because it was more lenient with visas. They argued that their financial considerations, their self-interest and their industry needs should overcome the need to have a visa system in this country. It is similar in the education field. A large part of the monitoring of the industry and the way it operates is now driven by the need for these institutions to finance a large part of their operation through foreign students but also to recruit people on the basis that they are coming here to get permanent residence.

There are very big stresses and pressures in the industry. The bill cements requirements—and, in many cases, theoretical requirements—of the provider to tell the department about people who are not attending or who are failing et cetera while, at the same time, it reinforces the departments ability to examine students who have failed and institutions which do not comply. I will give an example of the constant pressures in this sector. Yesterday I was talking to a person who is deeply involved in the refugee movement in this country and who is also a legal practitioner in this sector. He contacted me last week with a concern about the amount of corruption and fraud that is going on in the student sector. He said that, as a result of a decision by the department of immigration, there is a rort whereby people deliberately fail the first year of their course so that when they repeat it they can say that they have completed a two-year course of study.

The ruling of the department is that students have to do a two-year course of study. They are interpreting a failure in the first year and a pass in the next year of study as a two-year course of study. Originally, the department were trying to counter the issue of semesters and years. As I said, the person who raised this issue with me is a practitioner and someone who is among one of the most public advocates of refugees in this country and involved in a variety of ethnic communities. He said that we are going too far in this sector and that too many loopholes and areas are being exploited by lawyers and by interest groups.

In recent months, we have had an indication of a wide range of problems in this sector. It is alleged that students at the Melbourne International College were paid to skip classes. A former community welfare teacher in that institution indicated that he had been pressured to pass non-attendees and that money was paid by students—and sought from the institution on some occasions—not to have to attend classes.

Central Queensland, which, as I have said, is infamous in the industry, has a private partner operation. That private partner takes 60 per cent of profits. It is under severe criticism by the sector. This institution is known for its secrecy and the confidentiality requirements it puts on its staff. Its plagiarism levels have been double those of Sydney, with only one-sixth of the students of Sydney. One would think that these were an odd coincidence of practices at the university. It has also been widely criticised for its failure to report breaches and has instituted a condition that people have to be there for 12 months before they are allowed to quit.

There have been hunger strikes at the university. Some of its students have claimed—and I say ‘claimed’—that they were tested on material that was not in their study guide. It has a reputation now of low entry requirements and minimal research capacity in the broader campus, which is supposedly being financed by foreign students. We are seeing it becoming the dictator of the whole university these days. The money that it is gaining from this sector is being ploughed back into the recruitment of foreign students rather than, as was theoretically desired, to strengthen the university. It has also been widely reported in the Sydney media that its legal course was open book and multiple choice because of the language difficulties of students. Another former lecturer talked about the widespread plagiarism in that institution.

In the Age on 22 March, the International Business and Hospitality Institute spoke of a former student—and the member for Capricornia touched upon this in her contribution—and a former teacher going through the history of reports to the Australian Crime Commission which had pressured the Victorian Office of Training and Tertiary Education unsuccessfully. I do not dispute for one moment that, if there is anything lacking federally, there is a bit lacking in a few of these state monitoring organisations as well. That institution was accused of substandard training and inadequate teachers. It was also the subject of an allegation by the Australian Crime Commission of criminal activities, which revolved around the college. There were reports of students, as noted earlier, being sent on vacation and certificates being given to non-finishers. There were also claims that 30 students were fooled into giving money for substandard tuition.

There was a controversy concerning Deakin University over repeat exam procedures. Large numbers of students failed a test originally but there was a very significant upturn in the numbers who passed on a second effort. In one case, a person succeeded in passing on their fourth attempt. Colin Long, from the National Tertiary Education Union noted:

The fear of losing the international student market is driving what a lot of universities are doing in terms of teaching and ... academic standards in general.

We have seen enough evidence of the significant problems in this sector to question the degree to which we can rely upon their internal monitoring, because there is a very strong commercial imperative for them to go in the other direction. These institutions might, in a sense, be worried about their long-term credibility, because that could be one of the reasons for the market drying up. But the short-term objective is to get money, the quick dollar, from this sector and that is an inhibitor to policing the field. I commend the amendment because it speaks of ‘a lack of action taken in response to recent examples of questionable activity in the overseas student area in both the University and Vocational Education and Training sectors’.

In summary, this industry can do much for our country’s financial wellbeing and interaction with other communities and countries. It can improve our status in the world. It can enhance our multicultural society. Students can come here and experience the way in which their community is treated. They can go to a variety of dances, cultural exhibitions, art exhibitions restaurants et cetera because we have such a diverse community. They are all positives. Let us hope that we can keep attracting foreign students for the right purpose: giving them an education.

Whether they stay here or go back and contribute to their own countries is not an issue. It is a positive. We should seek to have an industry here which is respected and which accomplishes that. Unfortunately, we are seeing commercial operators and entrepreneurs working for the institutions and selling education as simply a way to get permanent residence. At the same time, we are seeing questionable practices by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in regard to their interest in policing the industry and questionable emphasis with respect to English requirements in a variety of courses. I commend the amendment.

Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007. Only last month, new data was released that underscored the continued growth and the importance to the Australian economy of international student enrolments. In 2006, total international student enrolments increased by 11 per cent. In all, over 380,000 international students enrolled to study in the Australian educational system last year. Beyond this, however, the data also reveals a growth in commencing new enrolments, with 25,000 more students beginning their studies in 2006 compared to 2005. The majority of all overseas student enrolments are in the higher education sector, but it is worthwhile noting that significant growth continues in the vocational education and training sector. This sector increased its total enrolments by 26 per cent in 2006 and now accounts for almost 22 per cent of international student enrolments. These numbers show that Australia’s education sector is increasing its international attractiveness, and the continuing growth in the number of international students coming to Australia contributes substantially to our country and to its economy.

As the member for Reid noted in his more optimistic passages, international education builds relationships across borders, facilitates social cohesion, facilitates trade competitiveness from skilled migration and advances Australian foreign interests and relations. It has done that for over 60 years and it is accelerating now. It is important. The regard in which Australia is held by people who have been educated here is not total but it is overwhelming. Some people leave with bad experiences, but, overwhelmingly, being educated in Australia brings a connectivity with Australia which cannot be underestimated. The economic benefits of international education for this country are substantial. Over the last financial year, international education contributed $10.1 billion to the economy. As has been said again and again, international education is now Australia’s fourth largest export industry, surpassed only by coal, iron ore and tourism.

The importance of international students and the fact that the sector did face important issues was underscored by the provision in the ESOS Act 2000 that required an independent evaluation of the act’s operation to be undertaken within three years of the act receiving royal assent. In introducing the act, the then Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs said the legislation was designed ‘to address problems in the industry’. Nobody has glossed over the fact that there are issues and challenges within the industry. Part of the response to that is the fact that we conducted a review to determine the legislation’s:

… effectiveness in addressing these problems and any new problems that might emerge over the intervening period.

The review would be:

… comprehensive, covering both their effectiveness and efficiency and the ongoing needs of the industry for regulation.

The evaluation began in May 2004 and was reported on in January 2005. A key component of the evaluation was extensive consultation with stakeholders. Approximately 60 written submissions were received and a similar number of consultations were also held. Submissions were received from diverse bodies such as student associations, Australian government agencies, education and training providers, state and territory governments, and training agencies.

The report Evaluation of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 found overwhelming support across all stakeholders for the promotion of legislated and mandated arrangements to regulate the education export industry. It also found that the ESOS Act 2000 had substantially improved the situation. It described the ESOS framework as ‘a de facto quality benchmark for the education export industry as a whole’.

The report complimented the remarkable achievement of reaching a high degree of common purpose across all education sectors. The evaluation team commented that this uniformity represents a recognition of the fact that:

… Australia’s face to the international student market must be national and must be driven by a concern for quality.

The evaluation also found, however, that the administration of the ESOS legislation and framework required reform. Forty-one recommendations were made identifying ways in which these could be strengthened. These recommendations formed the basis of three pieces of amending legislation of which this bill is the latest. The two other bills were passed by parliament last year, and the present amendments flow from the evaluations recommendations and from other issues raised by the Department of Education, Science and Training.

Responding to a central recommendation of the evaluation, an important amendment contained in this bill sets out the principal objects of the ESOS Act. This clear articulation of the purpose of the act will help prevent confusion and ensure that stakeholders understand the intent of the act. The bill defines three principal objects of the act. The first is to give assurance to international students that they will receive the education for which they have paid, the second is to protect and enhance Australia’s reputation for quality education and training services, and the third is to ensure that education providers submit information relevant to student visas and to the administration of migration laws. The reforms advanced by the bill reflect these three key objects: the recognition of students as consumers, the protection and enhancement of the quality of education provided by Australia and the effective implementation of student visa administration.

In relation to the first of these, the bill introduces a technical amendment that, together with the new provisions in the revised national code, will give international students greater consumer protection. The ESOS Act evaluation recommended that the act be amended to mandate that a provider enter into a written agreement in plain English that formalises the enrolment of each of their overseas students. Currently this agreement is optional. As outlined in the national code, the agreement will cover such information as details and conditions of courses and details of fees and charges payable. It will explain students’ entitlements to a refund and the processes involved in claiming a refund. It includes a plain English explanation of what happens if a course is not delivered and a statement that specifies that the signed agreement ‘does not remove the right of the student to take action under Australia’s consumer protection laws’. Ensuring that student and provider are made plainly aware of their mutual obligations responds to the widely held view that many international students ‘are unaware of the protection available to them and do not take appropriate action to protect their rights’. Making this formerly voluntary agreement mandatory will provide improved consumer protection for students.

Another provision of this bill that is designed to improve the educational experience of international students in Australia amends the act to provide international students with the same opportunity as domestic students to pursue their studies across more than one state. Universities today increasingly offer courses and programs in partnership with other educational providers, often outside the state of their main campus. Previously, the ESOS Act allowed more than one provider to supply an international student’s education, but the providers needed to be within one state or one territory. This amendment allows designated authorities to approve arrangements for students to attend courses and programs delivered by a secondary provider in another state and for the original provider to remain responsible for monitoring course compliance. This recognises the expanding need to facilitate student movement between educational providers and industry, and it will provide a response to skills shortages by course components such as industry placements being undertaken in environments where the need is greatest. Students’ experiences of both Australia and its educational system will be expanded, as they are able to acquire practical skills in various locations around the country.

As well as inhibiting interstate service delivery, the current regulations exclude service delivery in the Australian external territories. This must be a very successful amendment because at least four people have taken credit for it in the course of this debate! Responding to requests from the Christmas Island District High School, the chamber of commerce and the Western Australian Department of Education and Training, this bill extends the provisions of the act so they apply to Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The new provision will allow Christmas Island high school to enrol overseas students in years 11 and 12 and will provide a desired boon to the local economy.

Both the changes to interstate regulations and the extension of the scope of the act to include Christmas Island are important legislative responses to the need for flexibility in this sector to ensure that it provides the very best services for international students. These changes reflect the core principles of the act of improved service provision and enhancing the quality of Australia’s reputation as an education provider.

The amendments proposed by the bill also impact upon the principal object of ESOS Act in the area of visa administration. The bill introduces an amendment complementing reforms to the National Code 2007 regarding visa compliance. Under the National Code 2007, registered education providers are required to send written notification to a student of their intention to report a student for breaches of the conditions of their student visa relating to unsatisfactory attendance. The National Code 2007 allows providers some discretion as to when they proceed to report a student who has breached their visa requirements yet is progressing satisfactorily through their course and where compassionate and compelling particulars exist to explain the breach. This amendment makes it clear that it is the provider that is responsible for educational issues. Educators are best placed to make this assessment. They will view the scholastic achievement, evaluate it and make their judgment accordingly. The academic assessment of a student’s progress is the responsibility of teachers, leaving the department to finalise the student’s visa status. I believe that placing this emphasis on the provider will also encourage them to monitor student progress more closely and to discern and pre-empt any potential problems or welfare issues.

Finally, a technical amendment contained within this bill will improve the administrative effectiveness of the act in the area of its fund contribution management. The independent evaluation recommended the removal of the financial penalty for late payment to the fund contribution, as this was administratively burdensome and not cost-effective. It is proposed that the late fee be replaced by an alternative penalty of suspension of the provider’s CRICOS registration. It is anticipated that such a penalty will provide a more effective means of promoting on-time payment of the annual fund contribution.

In line with what has been an ongoing process of reform and improvement in this area, the amendments proposed by this bill are designed to help ensure that Australia continues to offer high quality education to overseas students. I have highlighted the importance of international students to our economy and the process of reform and improvement resulting from the evaluation of the ESOS Act 2000 and carried out in 2004 and 2005. The amendments in this bill will clarify and enhance the major objectives of the ESOS Act and will help ensure Australia’s reputation as a world leader in education and training provision continues well into the future. I commend the bill to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, let me acknowledge the contribution of the member for Kooyong, and before him, on our side of the House, the member for Capricornia and the member for Reid. I thought the member for Capricornia’s speech was very important in outlining some of the major issues and flaws that have existed in the treatment of overseas students in this country—and perhaps, in some instances, in their behaviour—and the way Australian providers, whether tertiary institutions or others, have gone about their business.

The amendments go to the heart of a great debate in this country about higher education and about the need for the university sector to look offshore for overseas students to make up revenue which should otherwise, perhaps, have come from other sources—to wit, the government. It is clear that because of cuts made in the higher education sector, and the lack of investment in the sector as a result of those cuts, many in the higher education sector rely on revenue from international student fees when they might otherwise not. The second part of the amendment asks us to look at the lack of action taken in response to recent examples of questionable activity in the overseas student area of the university and vocational education and training sectors.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this bill is important in a number of aspects but particularly for what it does for the Indian Ocean territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. It is about that that I want to speak in large part today. But I do want to pick up on what the member for Kooyong said about the importance of the new section 4A that sets out the principal objects of the ESOS Act:

(a) to provide financial and tuition assurance to overseas students for courses for which they have paid; and

(b) to protect and enhance Australia’s reputation for quality education and training services; and

(c) to complement Australia’s migration laws by ensuring providers collect and report information relevant to the administration of the law relating to student visas.

When did you come to the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker Kerr, because I have been calling you Madam Deputy Speaker for a couple of moments? I note that you are not her!

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Either that or I am cross-dressing!

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may be cross-dressing, but you have changed your hairstyle! It is a pleasure to have you here.

I want to go, in particular, to the new proposed section 4B in the amendments, which extends the ESOS Act to Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The extension of the operation of the act to Christmas Island was recommended as part of the evaluation of the ESOS Act by Phillips KPA. This is to enable the Christmas Island District High School to be registered on CRICOS for the purposes of delivering courses to overseas students, subject to the Western Australian government committing to the placement of overseas students in appropriate tuition in years 11 and 12 if those years are discontinued by the high school. By making Christmas Island District High School eligible for CRICOS registration, the viability of years 11 and 12 at the school is enhanced, and it will also be of great assistance to the island’s economy. I will come to the detail of that in a moment.

While it does apply to Christmas Island because of the desire of the Christmas Island community to get access, it is important to understand that section 4B of the amendments simply ensures that this act applies to the territory of Christmas Island and the territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Island as if:

(a) a reference in a provision of this Act to a State included a reference to the Territory of Christmas Island or the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands; and

(b) a reference in a provision of this Act to a designated authority in relation to a State included a reference to the Territories Minister.

That is important because it means that there is the potential for others with an interest in providing these services to be engaged, either on Christmas Island or the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

But, at the outset, it needs to be comprehended that the thrust for this has come from the Christmas Island community. I have been visiting the Christmas Island community for 20 years this year. For much of that time, people have been looking at how they could make use of the resources of the island community to expand the economic activities of the island but also take advantage of the significant geographical advantages that Christmas Island has, being so close to our South-East Asian neighbours.

For those of us who are not aware, Christmas Island is roughly a 3½-hour flight and 3,500 kilometres or thereabouts from Perth to the north-north-west of Perth and about the same distance west of Darwin. By jet, it is approximately a 40-minute flight from Jakarta, so it is very close to our neighbours, and, significantly, flights into Christmas Island emanate currently from either Perth or Singapore. The island community see much of their business as coming from the north, even though they are clearly being serviced from the Australian mainland.

Over the years, on a number of occasions that I can recall when Labor was in government, I received submissions from people who were interested in looking at the possibility of setting up a college on Christmas Island for the purpose of providing an educational opportunity for overseas students in English. That has enormous future potential for the community. Clearly, the community in the high school on Christmas Island has seen that working together and putting their not inconsiderable weight behind the high school getting access to this ability to be able to take overseas students is an important part of the future planning for the development of the island community.

Madam Deputy Speaker—Mr Deputy Speaker: I should know by looking at you—this is a really terrific place. For those of us who have had the privilege of visiting there—I have been there on at least 20 or 30 occasions and I have many friends on the island —it is a significantly different place to any other part of Australia. It is a relatively small population, but around 65 to 75 per cent of that population speak Chinese as their first language; they have come from Singapore or Malaysia in past years and in previous generations to settle on Christmas Island. A significant proportion speak Malay as their first language. Then there are mainlanders—I really should not describe them as mainlanders—who have English as their first language and were born there but some of whom migrated from the mainland. It is a very interesting cultural mix; it is very different from most parts of Australia because of its isolation and the fact that these cultures are living together so vibrantly and are fostering a very good example to all of us as to how we should live together.

There has been much discussion over many years to ensure that the ESOS Act is applicable to the Christmas Island District High School, because the school will then be able to meet the requirements of the National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students. I understand that the Western Australian Department of Education and Training is sending its own departmental people to the island next month to set up the international student unit within the school. It should be pointed out that the community is very supportive of the high school, the provider of the service, and it is not the view at the moment that it wants to support any other provider—although the act of course does not prevent this.

Primary and secondary education on the island, as you, Mr Deputy Speaker, having been part of the Islands in the sun report, and those of us with memories in this place would know—I am sure I will have to tell most other members of the House—is provided by a service delivery agreement with the Western Australian Department of Education and Training. This delivery agreement in fact could be with any organisation. It need not be just with the Western Australian Department of Education and Training; it could be with the Northern Territory Department of Employment, Education and Training—and, indeed, they have looked at those options over the years.

Like many schools in the electorate that I live in, the provision of secondary education on Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands generates much discussion, and for many years it just was not available; it has only been available for about three years. There are always questions, which are raised by education administrators, about economies of scale, about the diversity of the courses that can be provided and about the range of options in subject choices et cetera. Parents are often faced with the dilemma of whether to support the local high school or to opt to send their children to the mainland to complete their secondary education. The reasons for this choice are many, but it places significant burdens on those families and the community—not the least of which is the financial burden that a mainland education places on island families.

Since years 11 and 12 have been provided on Christmas Island—I need here to commend the work of the professional educators on the island for what they have done—a small cohort of students have been trailblazers in establishing this senior component of the school, and it is now possible to complete year 12 on the island. Although some students continue to opt to complete their education on the mainland, they have a choice and there is clearly no obligation on them to complete years 11 and 12 on the island. But the staff and parents on Christmas Island do need to be congratulated on their support of post compulsory school education in the community.

Christmas Island District High School is a focus of activity on the island. As I said, it has strong Islamic and Chinese foundations. It is noteworthy that this year on Christmas Island there is an exchange student from mainland China. That student’s arrival on the island was facilitated by the previous Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Madam Fu. Madam Fu travelled to the island, built up a relationship with the island community then worked with the island community and the Western Australian Department of Education and Training to ensure that a Chinese student could come to the island to help teach the language.

That is important when you think of where potential students of this school might come from and whether the school should provide language services for overseas students. We know that there are 15,000 students from Indonesia and 10,000 students from Singapore in this country. There are 80,000 students from mainland China. Each of these countries has close connections with the Christmas Island community. That is exemplified by the relationship which has been developed with mainland China, the Republic of China, through the work that the embassy here and Madam Fu did with the island community. I am certain that this opportunity will be taken up by the island community. They will see this as a way to stabilise and ensure the future of their year 11 and 12, but other opportunities will undoubtedly emerge. One can see how opportunities might emerge to provide other training for overseas students.

I am sure that on Christmas Island, above any financial incentive to attract overseas students, there is a firm commitment from all islanders to maintain and improve the quality and range of education services for the benefit of the entire community. If that were not the case, I would find it difficult to support these proposals. We are talking about enhancing the education opportunities for the island’s students and providing a quality education and language program for overseas students. I have mentioned already the number of overseas students currently in this country who have come from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and China. On the figures that I have for 2004-05, the economic benefits of international education to Australia are estimated to be around $7.5 billion, of which $6.9 billion was from spending by onshore students. So there is significant economic potential to be garnered from the development of this facility on Christmas Island.

I think the geographical and cultural advantages that Christmas Island has for potential overseas students are obvious. It seems to me that, with this amendment bill today, there is no limit to what might happen in terms of not only enhancing opportunities for overseas students on Christmas Island but, significantly, also providing a base for the further development of education opportunities for the island community. I think this is a very important piece of legislation for that reason. I want to comment again on the contribution of the member for Capricornia, who outlined in great detail flaws in the treatment of overseas students previously. She raised significant questions as to how the government is going to ensure that the principal objects of the act are carried through.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lingiari, but might I suggest that he have his eyesight tested if he discerns any manner of resemblance between me and the honourable member for Mackellar.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, Mr Deputy Speaker Kerr, not in behavioural traits.

Dave Tollner (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am proud and happy to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 that is before the House today, because education services are a vital growth component of our export markets. Building upon the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, this amendment bill will further protect the hard-won reputation of Australia’s education and training export industry. It will do so by regulating education and training providers, providing consumer protection and tuition assurance for overseas students and ensuring the integrity of the student visa program.

The bill includes amendments that support the revised National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students, known as the National Code 2007. The bill will enhance national consistency in the administration of the ESOS Act. It will also streamline administrative procedures for international education providers, ensure that the ESOS legislation maintains the integrity of the student visa conditions and migration regulations and minimise any perception of duplication in compliance monitoring by the designated authorities and the Australian government.

The ESOS Act and its complementary legislation ensure the quality of education and training provision to overseas students. The amendments contained in the bill will simplify procedures for international education providers. These amendments will be welcomed by the international education industry. The stakes are high. In 2004-05, the economic benefits of international education to Australia were estimated to be around $7.5 billion, of which $6.9 billion was from spending by onshore students. In 2005 fees from overseas students contributed $2.1 billion to university revenue.

The broad principles laid down in the amendment bill will have a direct impact on the quality and delivery of higher education in all states and territories. In the Northern Territory, it will help to build the framework necessary to attract international universities and upgrade quality standards. On this note, I strongly support the establishment of a stand-alone United Nations University research and training centre on traditional knowledge in the Northern Territory.

Since early last year, I have been having discussions with both Charles Darwin University and the United Nations University on this very exciting initiative. There is still a way to go, but the United Nations University has made an in-principle commitment to build a centre of excellence for traditional knowledge—Indigenous studies—located at Charles Darwin University, Australia’s youngest university, in Darwin, in my electorate of Solomon.

CDU won the backing of the United Nations University to locate the centre in Darwin against international competition, and a great deal of credit must go to the vice-chancellor, Professor Helen Garnett, for her vision in promoting the collaboration. Considerable matching funding has been sought from both the Northern Territory government and international philanthropic sources, and I know that the federal government is currently reviewing funding options for the project.

CDU is seeking funding of several million dollars from the federal government as a one-off contribution or, alternatively, funding contributions on a year-by-year basis over the long term. The United Nations University has indicated that it will contribute several million dollars to establish the centre, conditional on matching funds from the Australian government. The proposed Indigenous studies centre is acknowledged by key Indigenous groups as an important step in enhancing the economic and social outcomes for Indigenous people in Australia.

The United Nations University functions as a decentralised network of networks with a truly interdisciplinary and global perspective. The UNU system comprises the UNU Centre in Tokyo and a worldwide network of research and training centres and programs assisted by numerous associated and cooperating institutions.

In June last year, the UNU Institute of Advanced Studies reported on a proposed meeting of international experts in Brisbane to establish a UNU initiative on traditional knowledge. They reported:

UNU-IAS has completed a preliminary study for establishing a centre on Traditional Knowledge in Australia. The study concluded that establishing a centre on Traditional Knowledge in Australia would be feasible and timely, and could make an important contribution to the challenges facing Traditional Knowledge ...

Charles Darwin University was subsequently selected as the preferred host for the United Nations Research Centre on Traditional Knowledge. Although CDU has only 218 overseas students currently enrolled in a total student population of 5,324 students, the proposed UN centre has enormous potential for the campus.

The amendment bill before us today will help new universities like Charles Darwin because administrative procedures for international education providers will be streamlined. It will ensure the quality of education and training delivered to overseas students is improved. This makes good sense, particularly in the Northern Territory, where there is a need to rationalise Indigenous education courses and develop centres of specialisation and excellence. The Territory has the potential to be a world leader in fields like Indigenous studies and tropical medicine, and the location of the UN University at CDU would provide some obvious synergies.

Charles Darwin University operates in some of the most remote contexts and regions in Australia and the world. Working in cross-cultural and multilingual environments requires methodologies of delivery and interaction that are quite different from any other tertiary institution in Australia.

I strongly support the idea of a United Nations global centre for Indigenous studies, which would consolidate all Northern Territory Indigenous educational groups, including the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, into one world-class centre. Batchelor Institute is controlled and run by Indigenous Australians and specialises in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from across Australia, especially remote communities. It aims to develop an Indigenous approach to mainstream disciplines and careers.

The institute offers higher education and vocational education and training courses, ranging from apprenticeships to certificates. The proposed tie-up between CDU and the UN University should strengthen ties between Batchelor Institute and Indigenous communities through cooperation in Indigenous research and development. This will attract overseas students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, as well as academics, to the Northern Territory and reinvigorate higher education, scholarship and research in the Indigenous education field. It will also promote partnerships in research and scholarship with other organisations and researchers.

New funding sources and grants, for example, would expand and strengthen Batchelor’s research profile and provide research grants to staff. So far, research activity in the institute’s dispersed environment has been limited, to say the least. There are currently no students undertaking higher degrees by research. If the Batchelor Institute were to merge into CDU—a move which, by the way, I am keen to promote—it would allow them to focus on those areas which they should do best. That is predominately the VET sector, training apprentices and the like in a whole range of fields, which are sorely needed in most remote communities.

If the UN University and CDU can seal a deal and Batchelor Institute merges its operations into CDU, it will enable Batchelor Institute and possibly other Territory Indigenous education bodies to function in a global environment, offer higher degrees by research and develop key areas of research in education, health, management and natural and cultural resource management.

The new Batchelor campus of CDU could become a truly specialist institution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary education through the provision of recognised and internationally accredited educational and vocational training courses. Of course, there will be major benefits to all concerned from the creation of better economies of scale that will see a greater bang for the buck, a much more targeted allocation of precious funds and better utilisation of the facilities at Batchelor.

This will be a world-class centre of excellence in all facets of Indigenous education and understanding and, as such, will attract considerable interest from other institutions not only in Australia but all over the world. Institutions and people will be seeking to collaborate and work with the best of the best. I believe that through this initiative the Northern Territory and CDU will capitalise on one of the Northern Territory’s greatest strengths, its Indigenous people.

For these reasons, I commend the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 to the House. In both its spirit and its letter it will advance these education goals in the Northern Territory and nationwide.

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 is the latest of several pieces of legislation setting out the legal framework for the responsibilities of Australian education providers to overseas students who come to Australia on a visa to study in the higher education area, the vocational education area, secondary high schools or the English language sector. The seminal act covering the Commonwealth’s regulatory regime in this policy area is the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000.

This is the third amendment bill to tighten the administrative and regulatory framework governing the provision of education and training services to overseas students in Australia. Regrettably, we do not even live in a near-perfect world and these amendments are necessary to protect and enhance what has become a valuable export earner for the nation, now worth over $7 billion to the Australian economy. Some put that figure as high as $10 billion. As this industry has developed over time, it has become obvious that unscrupulous and mercenary operators are extracting profit from this activity and, in the process, damaging the reputation of genuine Australian education providers and potentially damaging a very important industry which, as I understand it, now occupies the position of our fourth-largest export.

An independent evaluation in 2005 made some 41 recommendations for improving the regulatory framework and the accountability of providers both to their client students and to Commonwealth departments, such as the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Without labouring over the more technical amendments, I will outline what this legislation’s major amendments cover.

This legislation adds an objects clause to clarify the main purposes of the ESOS Act. It also facilitates course delivery across state boundaries by allowing designated authorities to approve arrangements where a provider other than the registered provider is located in a different state to the registered provider. This of course reflects the reality of education within Australia today.

The bill enables a more accurate reflection of the actual allocation of the roles and responsibilities of the Australian government and the state and territory governments in relation to the investigation of breaches of the National Code 2007, which will come into effect from 1 July 2007. It also recognises the role of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to resolve the visa status of an overseas student, while the role of the education provider is to advise DIAC of that breach. The bill also makes written agreements with each overseas student mandatory under the National Code 2007.

We on this side of the House regard these amendments as both necessary and appropriate at this time to complete the strengthening of the regulatory and administrative environment that governs this trade. The provision of education services to overseas students is an area where the responsibilities of the Commonwealth and the states and territories are held conjointly. The states and territories have a primary responsibility for the registration, monitoring and evaluation of education providers and the courses they offer, while the Commonwealth provides the overall regulatory framework and the necessary visa and immigration services that enhance and secure this education services trade which is so important to Australia.

This is a trade of mutual benefit not only to the students who come to Australia to be educated but to the country from which they come, and to Australia as a nation which hosts these students and provides them with their education. For the overseas student, it is an opportunity to study in a world-class education institution at a competitive cost and in a relatively secure and friendly environment compared to others overseas. For the student’s own country, the ability to access reasonably priced, quality education in the region for many of its students relieves some of the burden on the government to provide the full range of education services, allowing opportunity cost investments and resource allocations to other socially and economically productive areas of the society.

For Australia, this service trade offers an opportunity to earn substantial export income and to maximise returns from education infrastructure and training investments already made here in Australia. It offers Australia the opportunity to project its influence in a constructive and unique way in the region. Long term, that has quite profound security implications for this nation. Therefore, it is incumbent on this parliament to get the regulatory regime right and to get the best possible cooperation between the Commonwealth and the states in providing educational services second to none in the world to overseas students.

We on this side of the House are very proud of the efforts and vision of the Hawke and Keating governments in setting up this important opportunity that the nation now embraces. It is Labor’s vision for a world-class education service offered to overseas students that is being realised every day as this important area of economic activity bears fruit for the nation. Indeed, if you were to listen to Howard government ministers, you would think that the history of the world only began when they were elected to this parliament. We hear this every day from the Prime Minister in his reference to the economic performance of the nation over the last 11 years, conveniently not disclosing to the Australian people that it was a Labor government that broke the back of Liberal inflation, provided a very low inflation regime, had the unemployment statistics heading south at a great rate of knots and provided an economy that had grown at four per cent for four years before the Howard government came to office. Likewise, in the education services area, you would think the history of the world only began with the election of the Howard government—but it did not. It was the visionary Hawke and Keating Labor governments that put this enormous opportunity front and square before Australian education providers, and we see the results today.

In my own electorate of Corio, in the Geelong region, we are indeed blessed with world-class primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions. We are able to offer to overseas students education services that are very competitive, of the highest quality and second to none. In our own secondary school sector, several schools have taken the opportunity to offer places to overseas students, not only to earn income from the assets they have already invested in education but also to provide a broader cultural context and learning environment for their own students. Indeed, in our secondary system there has been significant investment from overseas—from Japan, particularly, in Kardinia International College. As a result, not only are there important student exchanges now taking place between Australia and Japan but considerable resources have been invested in providing a broad curriculum and quality education for all students, from Australia, Japan and other countries throughout the region.

In the tertiary sector, both Deakin University and the Gordon TAFE make significant course offerings to overseas students. In 2006, the Gordon hosted some 113 overseas students from Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan. With new student interest coming from emerging markets in China, India and Indonesia and from as far away as South America, the Gordon is well placed to capture a slice of this very important trade in education services.

In a speech to this House in September 2006 on amendments to the education services act, I outlined the offerings of Deakin University as far as the overseas education services trade is concerned. At that time, there were in the order of 616 of those enrollees at Deakin University, with the major sources of those students being India, Zimbabwe and China. Of course, the students who came participated in a range of courses right across the tertiary curriculum offerings of Deakin University.

I will not labour on the elements of that speech. Suffice it to say that both the Gordon TAFE and Deakin University take their responsibilities to overseas students very seriously indeed. They spend a lot of time and energy in preparing students for their educational life in Australia, and they do that with the support of the Geelong community.

We are very fortunate in the Geelong region in the quality of the primary, secondary and tertiary education resources that are at the community’s disposal. It is pleasing to see that education institutions across the spectrum are taking advantage of these very important opportunities that are emerging to educate and train overseas students and, at the same time, making their contribution in those areas of the life of the nation that will be very important in securing our future. The Geelong region is ideally placed to provide these education services to overseas students. We have a laid-back lifestyle. We have quality education institutions that can provide courses at competitive costs. And, of course, we have a very supportive multicultural community which embraces diversity, so that overseas students who do come to the Geelong region feel very much at home and very secure.

This is a very important industry now to Australia in so many ways, as I have outlined. The industry is a major business. It is the largest provider per head of population and the third-largest English-speaking provider of international education services, with seven per cent of the market, behind only the USA and the UK. We are not dealing here with a tin-pot country—as some would say—at the bottom end of the world; we are a major player in this trade in an international sense. It is incumbent on Commonwealth and state governments to get the regulatory regime right so that overseas students who come to Australia remember their experience well and take that back to their own countries for the rest of their lives.

I recall going on many delegations to our region where I sat down to briefings with embassy officials, particularly with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and there was always a focus on educational services and the important work being done to grow that trade within our region. When one travels around Asia in particular, one continually comes across people who were educated in Australian educational institutions, and they fondly remember their experience here.

Before I entered parliament I worked with former industry minister and senator John Button. I recall accompanying him to Indonesia on one of his delegations and sitting down with, I think, then Minister Hartarto. Minister Hartarto had worked part time on the wharves in Melbourne while he studied in Australia and he held quite fond memories of the Australian friendships that he created during his education here. What price can you put on that goodwill? It is an extraordinary asset, and it demands that we make sure that the unscrupulous operators who drag the standards of this industry down are brutally weeded out in the national interest.

There is no place in this trade for any education provider that seeks to abuse an overseas student, a friend of Australia who entrusts their education to our care. There is no excuse for that, and any measure that the minister and the government might take to make sure that these unscrupulous providers are weeded out will get very strong support from the Geelong community and, I am sure, from this side of the House.

Likewise, we ought to be aware that this is a very competitive area of global trade. Perhaps I should not mention educational services strictly in trade terms because, as I have outlined to the House, I see the importance of this trade in its wider dimensions. However, it is absolutely important to Australia’s national economic export performance that this trade be enhanced, that our great educational assets be used efficiently in Australia’s long-term national interest and that the regulatory frameworks that we are able to devise in legislation coming through this House protect this very important aspect of our economy. There is no place for those who seek to abuse the enormous opportunity for the nation to secure its future both in an economic and cultural sense within our region.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all members who have made a contribution to this debate, but I cannot allow the opportunity to pass without challenging some of the misleading statements made by the opposition. The coalition government is providing a record investment of $8.2 billion to the university sector this year. Contrary to the assertions of the Labor Party, the Australian government has increased funding to our universities since 1996 by over 26 per cent in real terms. Over the next decade, the sector will be $11 billion better off as a result of the Australian government’s Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future reforms. Total university sector revenue has virtually doubled since 1996. Revenue from overseas students represents about 15 per cent of sector revenue. This government has invested significant public funds in our universities to ensure that they can continue to compete in an increasingly global higher education sector with increasing student and academic mobility.

The coalition government is committed to ensuring that international students who choose to study in Australia receive the highest quality education and training. Our world-leading Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, which I will refer to as the ESOS Act, gives legislative force to this commitment.

While the coalition government provides the overarching framework to protect the quality of education that an international student receives in Australia, the states also have a responsibility to regulate education providers. The state and territory governments are responsible for the initial approval and registration of providers and the ongoing monitoring of core quality issues. The states and territories have the power to suspend or deregister an education provider.

Education providers are also held responsible under the ESOS legislative framework for the manner in which recruitment activities are undertaken on their behalf by their education agents. Education agents play a vital part in the promotion of Australian education and training internationally. They recruit overseas students, refer them to education providers and provide marketing and promotion services on behalf of the education providers. Given that the vast majority of education agents operate in other countries, they cannot be subject to Australian law. However, the education providers are subject to the ESOS Act and are accountable for the acts of their agents—those that they have engaged to represent them—including any breach of the requirements of the ESOS legislative framework. The ESOS Act provides a nationally consistent basis for regulating Australia’s education and training export industry and ensures that international students receive the education and training for which they have paid.

The proposed amendment bill makes changes to the ESOS Act in response to an independent evaluation of the act. Importantly, the bill facilitates greater flexibility in relation to the investigatory roles to be undertaken by the Australian, state and territory governments in relation to the National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2007. I will refer to this as the National Code 2007. Measures made possible by this amendment will enhance national consistency and minimise any perception of duplication in compliance monitoring by the designated authorities and the Australian government.

The bill extends the scope of the ESOS Act to include Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The extension of the act fulfils the Australian government’s commitment to allow education providers operating on Christmas Island to apply to be registered to offer education and training services to overseas students. The amendment was developed in consultation with the Australian government’s Department of Transport and Regional Services and the Western Australian government.

A further amendment removes the imposition of a financial penalty for late payment of the annual ESOS assurance fund contribution. The late payment penalty is administratively burdensome on the fund manager and not viable on a cost-benefit approach, as it does not act as a significant deterrent to providers. Non-payment of the fund contribution results in the suspension of a provider’s registration. This is considered a more effective mechanism to promote compliance with the payment of the annual fund contribution than the imposition of a financial penalty for late payment.

Protecting overseas students is important to maintaining the good reputation of Australia’s international education industry. One of the amendments to the ESOS Act stems from the changes to the national code 2007, which will mandate written agreements between education providers and overseas students. This will provide greater confidence in the quality of the consumer protection mechanisms available to overseas students under the ESOS legislation. Compulsory written agreements will also ensure that students have a greater understanding of not only their rights but also their obligations under the ESOS legislation.

For the first time, the bill will facilitate course delivery by arrangement across state boundaries. This amendment allows designated authorities to approve a formal arrangement for delivery of a course between two or more providers where the second or any additional provider is located in a state other than that of the registered provider. The amendment does not oblige the designated authority to approve the arrangement. It will allow providers to respond to skills shortages by delivery of an element of a course, including an industry placement in an environment where the student may acquire practical skills not available in the particular state or territory in which the course is registered.

The ESOS Act supports the integrity of Australia’s migration program by placing obligations on registered providers to recruit only genuine students and to monitor and report on breaches of visa conditions relating to attendance and course progress. A breach of these visa conditions may result in the cancellation of a student’s visa. The amendment recognises that education issues such as attendance and course progress should be resolved by an education provider rather than the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The amendment is consequential to the implementation of the National Code 2007, which also strengthens the appeals processes available to overseas students in relation to decisions of their education provider.

This is the third group of amendments to the ESOS Act following the ESOS evaluation. The amendments introduced by this bill address industry concerns about the provision of courses across state boundaries under the ESOS Act and the perception of duplication in the roles and responsibilities of the Australian, state and territory governments under the act. Other amendments are consequential to the National Code 2007, or they clarify or update existing provisions.

All amendments are in keeping with the Australian government’s commitment to protecting overseas students and enhancing our reputation for high-quality education and training services through an effective regulatory framework. We are committed to ensuring that the quality and reputation of our $10 billion international education industry—our fourth-largest export—are maintained. I commend this bill to the House.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Capricornia has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.