Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I close off my comments today, following my earlier statements that were very much about our need to look at the amendments to ensure that this industry, which currently returns $15 billion to our economy, is somewhat protected. These amendments go somewhat towards that. I spoke about our experiences particularly with countries in South-East Asia, where we have developed a pipeline for students who come to this country. It is very important that we make sure that students are protected. Being parochial, being from Queensland, I said that some within the education sector have told me that a lot of these problems have occurred elsewhere in our country. The reality is that we need to apply legislation nationally to ensure that registration and the continuation of ensuring quality service provision is essentially there.

In part of the earlier discussion I mentioned the services of a subsidiary of the University of Queensland, the IES, which provides a whole range of services and provides students to the university sector. The gentlemen Gerald van Balveren and Chris Evason, representing the IES and its programs, spoke to me and essentially said that, as a provider to many universities, including its own—and it has been in business since 1997, providing quality services for students in this country—the IES is concerned, as we all are, about the reputation that we have as a country. Essentially, they have introduced a training program. Over 11,000 people around the world are doing online training in the area of service provision for students, including international students. That certainly suggests that they are very keen on the Baird review and the legislation that will ultimately govern international students in Australia. It is important that we protect them and it is important for our reputation—it is certainly important for those reasons—but, at the end of the day, our resolve to ensure that we make it safe for international students is very important. (Time expired)

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. I want to continue on from what the member for Forde was saying in relation to the importance of this sector to the Australian economy. We know that it is the third-largest export industry for Australia. This is a fantastic Australian success story. In 2008 it brought in about $15.4 billion. It employs many hundreds of thousands of people. It is vital that we continue to allow such an important sector to achieve and do so much for our economy.

The government’s legislation, as it is proposed, seeks to do a number of things in addressing many of the problems that all of us here have been aware of in recent times. Particularly, it enables a re-registration process for all institutions that are currently registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students. It looks at requiring providers to publish the names of education agents who represent them and promote their education services. I want to address those two things separately.

Firstly, I record my support for the provisions which require providers to publish the names of education agents. I think this is a widely supported provision and it will go some way towards enabling a better outcome where unscrupulous operators, or people who have engaged in unethical behaviour in relation to overseas students, have been caught in that activity. That is one way of ensuring more transparency and of limiting the possibility for problems. Of course, there are other ways that the industry itself suggests and that we may consider at a future time.

Secondly, I want to raise an issue in relation to the other main provision of this bill, which is that it will enable a reregistration of all institutions that are currently registered on the Commonwealth register. That is one way of addressing the problems that have arisen in the public domain. The argument is that there have been some alarming allegations made against some private education providers. For instance, students who have complied with all their requirements have been forced to pay additional fees over and above their agreed payments or risk having their visas revoked. Of course, that is unacceptable. However, I want to note in this place that that is not the practice of most of the providers of private education. In fact, most of those fine institutions have been responsible for the growth in this sector of the economy and have exported a fine quality product to overseas students. It has been a wonderful success story in Australia.

It is also important to note that there are already significant regulatory mechanisms in place. It is very difficult to establish a private education facility, as perhaps it ought to be. There are substantial state and federal requirements to ensure that it is a rigorous and difficult thing to do. When passing this legislation, we should consider not burdening those very successful enterprises that have met substantial regulatory requirements with going through a process where they revisit issues that they have already addressed in a substantial way. That is the feedback that I get from many of the private education providers who have been in business a long time. There is no question about their bona fides. But there is a question regularly asked of them by state and federal authorities, and they answer that question in a proven, acceptable and demonstrable way. Their reputations are not in question in relation to the allegations that are now in the public domain.

I want to caution that perhaps the process by which this reregistration will be conducted, particularly by the regulation, should be carefully considered and that an extra compliance burden not be placed on those completely ethical and properly regulated businesses that have conducted themselves in a proper fashion for a long time—and that is most of the sector. We have some wonderful stories about this sector. The businesses that have behaved ethically and built very successful education businesses are the custodians of our reputation internationally.

We know that education is an enabler; it is something that lifts people out of their situation. In our region, education is making a great difference to the vast number of people who still do not enjoy the standard of living that we do here in Australia. Exporting education is a great and powerful enabler for our region. It is something that enhances Australia’s reputation and role within our region and it has the capacity to do a great deal of good for our future relations with such important neighbours and trading partners. So it is important that we do not damage the reputation of this important sector by acting injudiciously. I would not suggest here today that that is the intention of the government. Rather, I simply say that, perhaps in our rush to respond to alarming situations, there are unintended consequences of that rush.

Legislating is not always necessarily the best answer to a problem like this, particularly when you look at peak bodies like the Australian Council for Private Education and Training. They represent about 1,119 organisations around Australia. Membership of their body requires a certain standard and a certain set of ethics and that, in effect, allows for self-regulation and that limits the capacity for problems and fraud. Some of the members opposite have spoken about self-regulation. Self-regulation can be a much more effective response in many instances than government legislation. In relation to these problems, the reality is that whatever legislation you pass, you still require a great deal of industry input of self-regulation to occur. We ought to be encouraging a system of self-regulation.

Some of the private providers that came to see me spoke of the mechanisms they use when one of their private institutions fails or may not be able to meet the commitments it has made to overseas students who have arrived here to study. Of course, this is the critical area. With the best will or the best intentions in the world, an institution may not be able to meet its commitments. An insurance scheme put together by a peak body could provide the capacity for other institutions to share the load of the member or institution that is unable to meet its commitments and could therefore take on the overseas students and so alleviate the problem. It is that kind of practical and considered industry specific solution that we ought to consider as an alternative in helping to deal with this situation. The legislation before us will deal with a very different situation—that is, people who behave unethically and do not met their commitments to overseas students. The legislation is designed to protect students who can often be vulnerable or who are unable to protect themselves—and that intention is a good thing.

In summing up that section of the provisions, I caution that we ought to very carefully ensure that the reregistration process does not inadvertently add continual and extra pressure on institutions that go through very rigorous processes to meet their accreditation at both the state and federal levels.

The other provisions of this bill are quite important. They go a long way towards alleviating many of the serious problems which have arisen in recent times. Fraudulent practices can cause irreparable damage to this vital industry for Australia. It is important that we act to send a signal to those people who would engage in fraudulent practices that they will not be accepted and that they will not be able to continue that activity.

As an opposition, we have great concerns that this legislation goes the entire way in relation to these matters. The coalition has proposed amendments, and I record my support for those amendments because there needs to be a tightening up to prevent students being duped by incompetent or dishonest providers.  Some of these are high-quality amendments and I recommend them to the government. We have introduced, for example, an amendment aimed at ensuring that regulatory bodies follow a risk management approach when determining the reregistration of providers. This is what I have been speaking about. This risk management system would mean that you look at the experience with the already registered entities—that is, those which have been in operation for a substantial period and have a record of success, being long-term viable businesses that employ thousands of people and potentially educate thousands of students. There ought not be a particular burden or question asked of those successful enterprises, which are not in question.

We really believe risk management in the approach to the implementation of this legislation is absolutely vital. As I have spoken about, there are already significant hurdles in place for many colleges and education facilities. Therefore, that amendment is a high-quality amendment. I do not think any government, of any persuasion, should stand and say, ‘We are the arbiters of all things that are good in legislative terms or legislative instruments.’ Indeed, when oppositions or other parties propose sensible and common-sense amendments, governments ought to consider those amendments with a view to improving legislation. I think that a risk management approach in reregistration is simply common sense and good policy that ought to be adopted by any government.

Looking at some of the other amendments that we are proposing, it is also critical that education agents are providing reliable and up-to-date information to prospective students. We have proposed that improved services be provided by education agents and a requirement that education agents will undertake qualified training. Once again, this is a sensible amendment. As a result, more accurate information will be given to prospective students, ensuring that their education experience in Australia is in line with their expectations. Again, this is a sensible amendment which is proactive and positive and will improve this proposed legislation. Indeed, the provision in the bill requiring the publication of the names of education agents is a good provision and should be supported. Equally, I accept that our proposed amendment that they undergo qualified training is also a good proposal which ought to be seriously considered and will improve the integrity of this legislation.

The third area of concern which we have as an opposition is the default fund for reimbursing overseas students if their provider ceases operation. This fund reimburses the student when the fund manager is unable to secure a suitable alternative training place for the student. Looking at how many recent provider closures there have been, this fund is obviously at a level where it must be fairly close to some sort of collapse. Recently, there has been a spate of very significant collapses, of private closures. They have been well publicised and there is an issue in relation to this fund. We have sought some more amendments that seek to improve the accountability and transparency of this fund—something I widely support. Under our amendment, the fund manager would be required to provide the minister with a written report in each instance of provider default where a claim is made on the fund. The minister would then have 30 days to table this in parliament. In terms of accountability and transparency, that is a good amendment. Thinking about how we could practically deal with the problems that come from provider collapses, then of course an assurance fund is one practical way of ensuring that we deal with the on-the-ground problems created when a provider collapses.

Without labouring the point too many times today, I really want to record my full support for this important sector of the Australian economy. This is our third biggest export area. It provides $15.8 billion to the Australian economy. The experience is overwhelmingly positive with the major number of private education providers in Australia for overseas students being ethical and conducting themselves to a high standard, promoting a good quality product that is in demand by our neighbours. Many of our neighbours choose to educate their children here because of the quality of the products that Australian institutions are offering.

The private education sector for overseas students is a great Australian success story. I feel that this legislation will allow for those institutions which are behaving fraudulently or unethically to be further limited. That is a good objective. However, in doing so, I would caution the government in reiterating that it ought to think carefully about how that is achieved. The legislation ought not place extra burdens upon those very ethical and properly conducted operators who have been in business for many years and provide good products. It ought to take a risk management approach and consider the opposition’s amendments in the spirit in which they are intended.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of theEducation Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. Australia welcomes the over 5.9 million visitors who come here each year. These visitors come for a range of reasons—the majority are tourists, temporary workers and international students. It is for these visitors that Australia must uphold its reputation as a safe destination: a destination where laws exist to protect people, whether they are citizens of this country, visitors, workers or students. In recent times, Australia’s international education sector has been marred by the actions of some unscrupulous providers. We have also been affected by the small proportion in our country who engage in criminal acts against foreign students. These are shameful acts that the community condemns.

This bill is not intended to deal with acts of violence against students. Those are broader issues that must be tackled by all levels of government and the broader community. However, this bill does seek to go some way to addressing the quality of education provided to international students. It will amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 to make provision for the re-registration of all institutions currently registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students by 31 December 2010. To become registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students, a provider must demonstrate that it complies with the requirements of the National Code of Practice for Registration Authorities and Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2007. The National Code is established under the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 and is a legislative instrument. As such, any breaches of the code by providers can result in enforcement action under the act.

Through this bill the national code will be further enhanced by two new registration measures for education providers. The new provisions will require state and territory registration authorities to be satisfied that the provider’s principal purpose is to provide education and that the provider has demonstrated capacity to provide education of a satisfactory standard. I note the comments of the member for Mitchell, who supports self-regulation and believes that the government should not place extra burden on ethical training organisations. The criteria that will be added as a consequence of this bill should not be seen as an extra burden. These criteria are standards that every provider should comply with and those providers that are ethical, have a long history of being compliant and are well-regarded in the national and international community for the services they provide should easily meet them. Consequently, our implementing of such additional criteria should not be seen as placing a burden on these providers.

I was a member of the Queensland Training and Employment Recognition Council from 2000 to 2007. It was the role of the council to advise on policy and guidelines for issues including the registration and regulation of training organisations and training contracts, the accreditation of courses and the regulation of accredited courses. I have witnessed the importance of ensuring the highest standards for the delivery of training and education. In Australia, we require domestic education providers to meet strict requirements, including satisfying the Australian Quality Training Framework. Action is taken where a provider fails to meet these standards—whether at the point of registration, when seeking registration for the scope of their training or as a consequence of an audit arising from a complaint or a normal assessment. The Training and Employment Recognition Council is able to require a provider to rectify a failure within a certain time. If the provider is unable to do so, the council can require it to show cause why its scope of registration, a particular course or its registration to operate as a provider should not be cancelled. It is reasonable for international students to expect that international education providers operating in Australia are equally required to meet strict criteria. If the provider is unable to do so the necessary steps should be taken to have the provider rectify the issue or to have a range of penalties applied. In the worst circumstances, where the provider is not able to provide any suitable courses of an appropriate standard to the student, action should be taken to cancel the provider’s registration.

Deficiencies have been identified in the current legislation regulating the international education sector and the government is obligated to address these developing issues. The government’s action should ensure that current and future students are provided with the best quality education while they study in Australia. That is why I welcome the minister’s comments that the state governments have already started rapid audits of providers and that these will be extended so that all providers working with international students will need to show that they have the best interests of the students at heart—not simply a profit motive. As I stated, the member for Mitchell took issue with this and, in effect, implied that training organisations that are reputable and that have a strong, positive history in this sector should not be required to undergo these audits. I disagree with the member’s comments. I think it is incumbent on us to ensure that the standing of this sector, both nationally and internationally, is upheld. To do that we must ensure that all the training providers operating within this industry meet the same criteria and undergo the same audit.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to some training organisations who operate in my local area and across Queensland and nationally providing training to international students. I discussed with them such questions as when the audit should be conducted, whether organisations who do have a longstanding history of being compliant should necessarily be pushed down to the bottom of the list as far as the priority of auditing is concerned and whether those organisations who are newer to the industry and so do not have that long history of compliance and reputation should actually be audited first. There were also issues such as whether organisations who may already have undertaken an audit in the last 12 months should also be pushed further back in the process. These are audit process issues that I have certainly guaranteed to take forward to the relevant department and minister. As I have already stated, this audit and reregistration process has to be completed by 31 December 2010, so the issues that have been raised with me by training organisations can certainly be considered in light of the time frame. It is important to note that those training organisations were not at any point saying they should not be required to undertake these audits. It is more a matter of timing and ensuring that those cases which we need to concentrate on are where students may be most at risk. They are the ones that we should be dealing with first. I am more than willing to take those issues up on their behalf.

With 327 institutions and over 4,605 courses registered in Queensland alone, it is essential that confidence in the quality of the Australian international education sector be upheld. By requiring all institutions to reregister, the government will be able to ensure that these institutions and the courses that they deliver meet the standards set down by the national code of practice. With so many courses available, international studies have certainly come a long way in recent years. The courses being undertaken by international students are not limited to vocational courses. In fact, they range from secondary studies at schools, both private and public, right through to masters degrees at our universities. In my local area I am aware of a number of secondary schools that have enrolled international students each year. I believe that, by having these international students in our schools, much can be learnt about their home country, their language and their culture. Equally, they have the ability to gain much from Australian students about life in Australia. I welcome international students into our local schools and our local community. By doing so we are a better nation for it. Australia can only become a more tolerant and accepting society through our engagement with our international visitors and our multicultural communities.

The government’s responsibility does extend beyond the students’ interests—and of course this bill is not focused merely on providing improved protection for students—to ensure protection of the institutions that operate within the international education sector in Australia. Many providers are providing a valuable service and quality education. It is important that the industry be regulated to ensure that those providers’ reputations are not sullied by the few who do the wrong thing. That is why this bill will allow the discretionary removal of the prohibition on education providers collecting moneys from studying students when a course has been suspended. The bill will also allow conditions imposed by states and territories on education providers to be recognised by the Commonwealth and allow exemptions from punitive provider default refund requirements for providers changing their legal entity. These provisions are important to ensure appropriate flexibility exists in the system to allow sanctions to be enforced in a manner commensurate with the level of breach and also to have regard for the individual circumstances in each case. For example, there are times when a provider may be in breach of the act or national code due to a change in the legal entity. Currently insufficient flexibility exists for these providers to continue to operate and collect fees from enrolled students. It is important that the federal government have in place strong enforceable compliance arrangements but also that any penalties are able to be attributed in a way that addresses the breach balanced with the obligations to and the needs of the international students involved.

This bill will also make provision for publication by providers of the names of education agents who represent them and promote their education services and it will require providers to comply with any matters prescribed in the regulations concerning their agents. This is an extremely important initiative. We have all heard of examples of international students being promised assistance with permanent residence in Australia through the study of courses here in Australia. These sales pitches come from some agents who are promoting international education institutions within Australia. Recently it was reported in the Australian newspaper that a Korean education agent had been implicated in the running of a two-storey Brisbane suburban home that was housing up to 37 foreign students. The report stated:

A raid by Brisbane City Council inspectors uncovered the operation under which a near record number of students were being used to service a $6000-a-month lease to cover the education agents’ upstairs home-office.

Although the issue of accommodation for international students is not the subject of these amendments before the House, that the person involved was an education agent certainly raises concerns. The minister’s second reading speech for the bill before the House does identify the need to address the practices of agents operating both within and outside of Australia in recruiting international students to Australia. Although these appalling practices are only engaged in by a small few, they can damage the reputation of the international education sector in Australia as a whole. Not only is Australia’s reputation put at risk but there are significant ramifications for the international students who are enrolled under false pretences. That is why it is important that the government provide further protections for overseas students from this type of conduct. This bill will do so through the additional requirements placed on providers. The bill will provide a mechanism through which international students will be able to raise any concerns about agents. The bill will also enable the regulations to prescribe the criteria to be applied, in considering whether a particular course is a suitable alternative, in circumstances where obligations would otherwise be imposed on a registered provider to refund monies paid by a student.

This bill addresses the immediate issues in relation to unintended consequences arising from previous amendments to this act and also deals with some of the developing issues in the international education sector. The positive benefits I have spoken about in relation to international students attending Australian schools equally apply to international students attending the other education institutions throughout this country.

Society can gain much from the experience of hosting international students. In recent times, we have all been appalled at the treatment of some international students in Australia. Any attack on students based on their ethnic background should be condemned and is not something that Australia is proud of. We know that the people who engage in such activities are not representative of our broader community, in which many cultures are celebrated and many nationalities embraced. Australia’s obligations are not limited to those visiting our shores. Australia also has an obligation to assist developing countries and we do so in many ways with foreign aid and other cooperative arrangements. The ability to allow people from developing countries to learn a trade or skill in Australia that can then benefit their own country through the use of those skills is another important way that Australia can play its part internationally.

The benefits of having an international education sector within Australia are not limited to the enrichment that students gain through the sharing of knowledge and beliefs or the new skills that they obtain; the sector is also significant for Australia’s economy. With almost 460,000 enrolments in Australia across the four sectors of Australian international education, international education, as an industry, is now Australia’s biggest services export. I have already spoken about the benefits to Queensland alone, with its significant number of institutions and courses available to international students. This is why it is important that internationally there is confidence in the quality of the Australian international education sector.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Rudd government not only for the introduction of this bill but also for bringing forward the international students review to be headed up by the former federal member for Cook, Mr Bruce Baird. The review will consider the need for enhancements to the legal framework of education services for overseas students in four key areas: supporting the interests of students, delivering quality as the cornerstone of Australian education, effective regulation and sustainability of the international education sector.

The Minister for Education, the Hon. Julia Gillard, also held a roundtable with 31 international students here in Canberra recently. These students are currently studying around Australia and have the opportunity to bring their concerns directly to the attention of the government. In addition, the government has recently released a good practice guide to assist international colleges and the minister has announced that details of the best performing international college providers will be made available so that all colleges can learn from best practice. These are all positive steps forward to ensure that Australia maintains its standing in the international community for delivering quality education to international students.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to some of my local training organisations. I met with representatives, including the general manager, of Sarina Russo, a well-known training organisation not just in Queensland but nationally. It is not only participating in vocational education and training and business courses but also has a large component of international students. I took great pleasure in meeting their representative group, including a representative from James Cook University, to talk about their issues and hear their input. I strongly encouraged them to make a submission to the review.

The Rudd government holds concerns that, in such a rapidly growing industry such as the international education sector, a small number of unscrupulous operators will arise from time to time for whom the provision of quality education is not a first motive. These operators prey on students overseas who wish to come to Australia to live as opposed to gaining a skill or trade. The message to these providers from the Rudd government is simple: if you are not providing your students with a quality education in a safe environment, clean up your act or risk being shut down.

This bill, along with the initiatives already outlined, will work to clean up the industry and restore confidence in Australia’s international education sector. I commend the bill to the House.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Dunkley. Good to see you again.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, sir. I rise to offer some thoughts on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009 and to urge the Rudd government to embrace the amendments that the opposition has foreshadowed. I commend the member for Petrie for her considered contribution. A number of the points that she raised are similar to those I would like to raise, but I also underline the fact that there is no single event or action that will deal with the concerns that this bill seeks to address. An integrated approach is required. Getting the educational providers up to speed in offering quality and integrity in their product is important, but it needs to be supported by the processes through which international students gain access to those programs, by the quality of their experience and by the quality and integrity in the migration processes that support them, while we have an eye to our broader national interest. That is why this bill is, I think, well intended, although it does fall short on some of the actions that need to be taken. All of us in this place look forward to the work of the Baird committee and to the outcomes from the Senate inquiry that has canvassed these issues.

This bill specifically seeks to focus on the education providers. It does that by requiring a re-registration of institutions that are registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students, CRICOS, by 31 December 2010. It establishes two new registration requirements for education providers and also obliges providers to list the names of their agents and to ensure that these agents comply with regulations relating to them and their conduct. It endeavours to strengthen the regulatory framework to address concerns about the industry and the wellbeing of international students who come to this country and, as in a number of recently publicised cases, find the experiences not what we as a nation wish for them or what they expect. These measures partly need to tackle what are rare, thankfully, but worrying examples of fraudulent practices. We have seen some examples where providers have been found to be shonky, where education agents have promised the world but not even delivered a globe or an atlas and where students have come to Australia to pursue a course of study in the belief that they will ultimately, and almost without fault, receive a migration outcome as a result of their studies—that is, complete a course of study and secure a permanent resident visa.

There are some opportunities for people concluding their studies and securing Australian recognised qualifications to transition that effort into migration processes for permanent residency, but those need to be carefully explained and the students, who in many cases spend serious sums of money, need to be absolutely aware of what they are purchasing. This is not purchasing visas. This is, effectively, overseas education export where people are purchasing a training and education opportunity. This is one of the things that need to be addressed as part of the government’s response to these more recent concerns.

Our international education industry has grown significantly over the past decade. Between June 2008 and 2009 alone, the growth of enrolments in all education sectors was 19.6 per cent. What is most striking, though, is what a vast pace of growth we have seen in the vocational education and training space, which also correlates to where some of the more worrying examples have arisen. That gives us a bit of an insight into where effort should be placed.

The provision of education to overseas students is our third largest export earner. It was $15.4 billion worth of exports in 2008. It is vital that we keep that effort and that we maintain the quality and integrity of our international student offer so that people continue to be attracted to studying and learning skills in Australia. We can benefit from that work not only in terms of export earnings but also in terms of the mutual understanding and the insights we gain both from those students and their countries of origin and, in turn, the insights students gain about us, our nation and what we hope to offer them and the world as a forward-looking, open country.

There are providers in my own electorate of Dunkley. Chisholm Institute of TAFE has, for a long time, been providing international student opportunities. Monash University, particularly, has the appeal of the peninsula campus for students from South-East Asian areas where being somewhat removed from downtown campuses is considered attractive. There is a perception among parents of South-East Asian students that the nearer you are to the downtown area, the nearer you may be to mischief. There are some secondary school providers as well. The Peninsula School, Toorak College and Frankston High School have all been offering international student opportunities over my time as the member for Dunkley. In fact, the Export Market Development Grants Scheme recognised the importance of this work under the Howard government and provided some financial assistance for the Peninsula School and Toorak College to extend and support their international education efforts.

You can see, with that history, why it is quite alarming that we have seen some examples of education providers and some students who have not been meeting requirements and therefore brought this whole system into some question, requiring closer examination. It is crucial that the quality and integrity of the international student system be maintained not only for the student experience and not only for the qualifications themselves but also because, as people venture out into the world with Australian-based qualifications, we need to make sure that that qualification stacks up. If there is a perception out there it has not been properly earned or has been purchased off the side of a Weeties packet then that will undermine the Australian brand and the confidence and assurance that people have in qualifications sourced from Australia or from Australian institutions. It is also important that the education providers themselves are of a quality so that those institutions are inoculated. We recognise that the international student market is quite vibrant. There are other options out there and if our offer is not up to scratch then that can reflect badly on our nation and on the student experience.

Moreover, if the qualifications themselves are relied upon by employers either here or overseas and found to be wanting then that, again, reflects badly on our systems. Our systems are of such credibility that, in my time working with AusAID as Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, some of our overseas development assistance work actually involved carrying forward our system—particularly of vocational education and training—into some of the countries we were partnering with. I remember vividly the work we did with China as it sought to step up its vocational education and training system. Our system itself was a key area of focus and interest for the Chinese as they sought to, in some ways, emulate what we have done here. If we bring that into disrepute then that has ramifications more broadly.

It is also important that, as we expand people-to-people understandings and relationships and build an international rapport, people from other countries who study in Australia leave with a very positive experience and a worthwhile and meaningful qualification. Again, looking at our overseas development program, offering academic education and training opportunities is seen to be important to capacity building for those participants that can then return to their home countries and apply the know-how, knowledge, skills and education they have gained as part of their time in Australia or working in partnership with Australian education institutions.

You can see the importance of getting this right. We have seen some vivid examples of where things have gone amiss, particularly with protests by Indian students and some examples of assaults and violence. Some of that is perhaps a response to an education industry in crisis—or at least one that is reported that way—and a reaction to immigration rorting where students were frustrated that they had been engaging in the course of study they had chosen, had applied themselves and their resources to that course, had spent significant sums of money, had been asked in some cases having arrived here to pay additional fees over and above what was agreed, and then had colleges of perhaps dubious quality and dubious motives threatening to revoke visas.

It again highlights why the whole system needs to be addressed. Who knows what these students had been told? Who knows what assurances or expectations had been created? Were those expectations credible? Could those assurances be actually given by agents seeking to profit from that international student experience but not in a position to offer a commentary on migration outcomes that might result from their participation in the very course that they are seeking to sell?

You can see how the situation is set up for some of these agents to over sell what it is they are offering, for education agents to push one particular product where their fee or commission might be attractive and to argue that that somehow is a more attractive, easier or streamlined way of getting a migration outcome. You can see that temptation. That conversation and transaction can occur a long way from Australia, and we need to make sure that the reach of our regulatory efforts can account for that kind of transaction and that kind of service overreach where education agents are claiming to be offering a whole lot more than some advice on courses that are available and suited to that person here in Australia. This is the importance of getting training organisations and academic institutions up to scratch.

In Victoria, the state that I am from, there are some situations that I am reasonably familiar with. We saw quite a hive of activity; a feverish amount of activity by the state government to try and shut down dubious registered training organisations. They have been forced to cease operations in some cases. What I would say to the Victorian authorities—and in fact to all of the state and territory authorities—is that this is not an event. Rather, this needs to be ongoing process; this needs to be, as Deming’s would say in quality assurance terms, an ongoing committed process in which we can identify deviations from acceptable practice and act responsively and quickly so that it does not fester into the kind of crisis that has occupied not only media coverage in Melbourne, Victoria and Australia but in international media outlets as well. We need to act to make sure that those outriders, that small percentage of unsavoury operators that are seeking to profit while not promoting good educational outcomes, are brought to heel. This bill goes some way towards doing that—although, as I have mentioned earlier, not far enough in my view.

There is a need to repair the reputation of the industry. But let me again emphasise that a small number of providers have been involved in this, a number of them in the vocational education and training area that is in part accounting for what is an astronomical growth in participation. In fact, VET enrolments grew by 39.3 per cent over the past 12 months. Comparing that to higher education enrolments, which grew 11.6 per cent, we might start to think that something is going on and we need to have a closer look at this.

The coalition recognises the importance of supporting international academic opportunities and international students. I spoke when we strengthened this legislation back in the year 2000 and touched on the need to have in place the ESOS default fund to reimburse overseas students who had been led down a very unfortunate path by providers, such as when providers cease operating or where the fund manager is unable to secure suitable alternative training opportunities. As a result of this spate of recent closures—this flurry of activity, with state and territory education authorities making sure that the education providers in their jurisdictions are up to scratch—some pressure has been created on the reserves in that fund. That is something that the government needs to turn its mind to in order to maintain it as a safety net for when education providers are found wanting and international students are left short because of that.

The relationships that need to be nurtured are between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. A whole-of-government response is what is needed. The Baird inquiry, run by my friend and former colleague Bruce Baird, is a very positive step in the right direction. There are enforcement powers available at state and territory levels. They are rarely exercised, although recently they were dusted off. You could tell that that was happening. There were sneezes happening all around the regulatory authorities at a state and territory level, because they had finally realised that these powers were there and they got an allergy when the dust started flying around when they decided to exercise those powers. That needs to happen more consistently and more reliably.

The amendments that the coalition is putting forward support the intent of the bill but deal with the fact that there is a need to go further. The bill does not go far enough in relation to providing international students with adequate levels of assurance or in ruling out unscrupulous or inept providers. It does not encourage a stronger risk management approach to be embraced by state and territories in the registration process. Therefore, whether the bill will meet its objectives is something that only time will tell. There is a need for more consultation by the minister. A more targeted approach is required. An early intervention culture needs to be built. I touched on the number of VET enrolments, and that certainly would have raised my eyebrows.

Re-registration is something that will be carried out by state training authorities, and they have not been consulted on the way through. As the member for Petrie mentioned, there are a number of issues about those that may have just registered a short time ago and those with a proven record of credibility and integrity getting some acknowledgment for the cost and effort of re-registration. These are some areas that I would urge the government to pick up.

I touched earlier on the ESOS assurance fund and the payment to overseas students when a provider has defaulted and there is no suitable alternative course available. That pretty much ran out of cash in January 2008, so that safety net is something that needs to be revisited.

There are a number of other measures that the opposition believes that the government should pursue. These include improving the quality frameworks around the provision of education to overseas students, tightening up the legislation, helping to prevent students being duped by incompetent or dishonest providers, tightening the eligibility for education agents and looking at these migration issues.

In my time as Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, we spent quite a lot of time with this issue with the Migration Agents Registration Authority trying to work out a way in which we could have international application of a domestic registration arrangement. I remember being at the High Commission in Fiji and being told that there was not a lot that we could do about migration agents offshore promising the world, taking handsome fees for it and in not all cases offering wise advice that was consistent with the law. I made the point that I thought that those who voluntarily agreed to subject themselves to our registration and regulatory arrangements could have their applications fast tracked. That would say to those agents offshore and outside the reach of our domestic law, ‘If you play along with our domestic law, we will fast track your application in advance of applications that might be processed by agents that have hung a shingle outside their door but have not shown that same commitment to our domestic systems.’

I still think that there is scope to do that. I do not underestimate the difficulty of it. But if we cannot enforce domestic registration arrangements on overseas migration agents—separating that role from overseas education agents in the knowledge that they are two quite distinct functions—let us put some incentives in place to encourage those people based overseas to work in a way that is complementary to our shared goal of integrity, quality and assurance in our international education system. There is scope there. There is an opportunity for the departments federally to pursue some of those ideas.

There is a strong argument for greater transparency in calls on the fund. That is another part of the amendments that the opposition has brought forward. It is aimed at improving the services of education agents by ensuring that they undertake appropriate qualifications and at making sure that they maintain the high level of confidence that we expect of them, regardless of where they are located.

I hope that Bruce Baird’s experience is brought to bear in the review role of the committee that he has taken on. I hope that he takes a whole-of-government view at a Commonwealth level and then recognises that many of the points of leverage are not always within the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction and that we need the best out of a range of participants to get a good outcome.

Finally, I think there is a need to revisit some of the consultative arrangements. I mentioned earlier that the re-registration process was free of any consultation with the state and territory based regulation agencies, even though they will be asked to do this work.

As for the minister’s roundtable for international students, boy is that a gabfest for the in-crowd! If you are not in a G8 university or an internationally acclaimed college you do not get a look in. There is a stack of applications—1,300 applications—from international students, all busting to provide their views, yet we end up with a love-in of the Group of Eight plus acclaimed colleges, and no room amongst 31 student representatives for a broader perspective. Why wasn’t there an opportunity to embrace, say, a Korean representative, given that Korea is providing one-third of the intake of international students, and why was there no scope for addressing the Saudi Arabian student interest, given the 73 per cent increase in their numbers? I think this was an opportunity that was missed. We could have had a broader representation of international students to get to the heart of what they are seeing and what they would like to see, and to understand their experiences.

This bill is well-meaning; it needs to go further. I hope that the government looks seriously at the coalition’s proposed amendments. I hope that some of my suggestions about how to make the whole international student system work better receive considered assessment by the government. This is such an important thing to get right and there are a number of steps we need to take to do that.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say at the outset that I utterly deplore the acts of violence which have taken place against overseas students. There can be no room for racial hatred or racially motivated violence in this country. The Deputy Prime Minister was absolutely on the money when she described the international education industry as an industry that has grown too fast, too soon, and that it was ‘growing so rapidly, with insufficient checks and balances, unfortunately attracting a small number of unscrupulous operators for whom the provision of quality education is not their motivation’.

She was spot on. According to Australian Education International’s monthly summary of international student enrolment data, enrolments by full-fee international students in Australia on student visas have more than doubled in just seven years, rising from over 204,000 in June 2002 to over 467,000 in June 2009. The numbers have more than doubled in just seven years.

The university sector originally accounted for most of the enrolments and most of the growth but since 2005—in the last four years—the vocational education and training sector has increased rapidly. The June 2009 figures show that the vocational education and training sector now ranks first, both by volume of enrolments and by volume of commencements. Over the past 12 months the VET sector has grown by a whopping 39 per cent. The private education is a significant player in the international student industry—and in the VET sector, in particular. Seven hundred of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training’s 1,200 members provide educational services to international students. Australian Education International notes that the growth in VET student numbers has been mainly taken up by non-government VET providers. In 2008, the majority of all VET enrolments were with the 437 non-government providers. The non-government provider share has grown from 73 per cent in 2002 to 84 per cent in 2008.

Just why has the international education industry grown so rapidly? The explanation is simple: in 2001 the Howard government changed the rules to allow overseas students who had completed post-school credentials at an Australian university or vocational education and training college to apply for skilled permanent residence visas from within Australia, in designated skilled occupations, as long as they did so within six months of completing their courses. Not only that: unlike prospective skilled migrants applying from overseas, those applying on-shore did not have to have relevant job experience in their nominated occupations. And there was more! They received extra points on account of their Australian credentials.

The international education industry has since expanded rapidly. It has been driven by the lure of permanent residence based on these changes. Agents overseas have had a field day telling students that all they have to do is to sign up for these courses in Australia, pay the big fees, and they will be guaranteed permanent residence here in Australia.

I support the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009I have no difficulty whatsoever in supporting it—but I do wonder whether the regulatory framework is adequate, even after these changes, to deal with the problems we have in the provision of international education. I believe that both the facts of the matter—international students being bashed and exploited, and dodgy colleges ripping them off and going bankrupt—and the logic of the statements by ministers Gillard and Crean, that this industry has grown too fast and too soon and that ‘the quality of our education is what we are promoting, not the visa attached to it’, lead inexorably to the conclusion that we need to decouple the link with permanent residence and revisit the changes that were made in 2001.

We should remove the capacity of international students to apply, on-shore, for permanent residence. We should require them to return to their country of origin before they can apply for permanent residence. The review which the government has established into the act that governs international education, the ESOS Act, being carried out by former federal Liberal MP Bruce Baird, should examine whether there should be a cooling-off period—for example, for two years—before overseas students can apply for permanent residence once they have completed their courses. I believe that instituting such a cooling-off period would clean up this industry overnight. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that it needs to be cleaned up, and she is right. To be candid, I do not have a lot of confidence that the present regulatory arrangements will do the trick. The arrangements certainly have not worked so far. They certainly have not protected overseas students; they have failed them.

Such a cooling-off period is not without precedent. At present, a student who comes to Australia as the beneficiary of government scholarship—either our government or theirs—is required as a condition of their visa, the subclass 576 visa, to return to their home country when their studies are complete. Once they return to their country, they cannot apply to return to Australia for a period of two years. If we decouple the link with permanent residence, then students themselves will clean up the industry. They will not pay large sums of money for courses of little or dubious value. They will continue to pay for courses that do represent value for money, but not for those which do not. Could this lead to a drop in the number of overseas students coming to Australia? It well might. It depends on how good the courses which universities and VET providers offer actually are.

I know some people will complain if there is a drop in the numbers, but I do not think their concerns are valid. The first concern we are likely to hear is that these student visa holders are a needed part of our workforce to meet the needs of an ageing population. I do not agree. According to the National Secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, John Sutton, last year 100,000 young Australians aged between 15 and 24 dropped out of the workforce. Surely this is not acceptable. Surely we want those 100,000 young Australians back in the workforce. We also want more of our mature aged workers back in the workforce. There are many people aged between 45 and 65 who are not in the workforce who are capable of working and who would enter the workforce should work become available.

The second concern we are likely to hear is that a reduction in the number of overseas students will be bad for universities and post-secondary education providers. Again, I do not subscribe to this theory. Eighteen and a half thousand eligible applicants missed out on a university place this year, up from 12,600 last year. Professor Bob Birrell says that the real number of students missing out may be much larger. He says eligible applications amount to 227,000 compared with actual acceptances of 161,000—a difference of more than 66,000. Yes, there is the question of funding of universities, TAFE and the vocational education and training sector. The previous government slashed funding for universities and vocational education and training and basically told universities and TAFEs to go out and make a living by bringing in fee-paying overseas students. So we will need to lift our funding for universities and VET. But, in my view, this is a far better use of taxpayers’ money than the billions of dollars we are now spending on infrastructure to accommodate burgeoning populations.

It was recently reported that it will cost $11 billion of taxpayers’ money to provide infrastructure to meet Melbourne’s rapidly expanding population. One of the reasons Melbourne’s population is booming is the skyrocketing of temporary entry permits. The consequences of this for Melbourne’s quality of life are serious—extra demand on stretched water supplies; loss of available land; loss of open space; declining bird, animal and plant life; traffic congestion; urban sprawl; and overcrowding. I have said previously that it is time to stabilise Melbourne’s population. Some people say, ‘You can’t stop people coming to Melbourne,’ and that is true, but you certainly can stop, and should stop, luring young people to Melbourne and other cities around Australia under false pretences—providing courses of dubious value and exposing young people to the prospect of exploitation and even the risk of violence, doing late-night jobs and travelling on public transport—in situations of real risk necessitated by having to support themselves and pay excessive fees.

The Age writer Sushi Das has done a first-class investigative reporting job in uncovering the scams surrounding Australia’s overseas student industry. She has done this against considerable odds—a climate of fear and silence which she described in July as follows:

… I will be frustrated and stonewalled by all those who don’t want such stories to see the light of day … the teachers who fear losing their jobs if they are identified, and the students who remain silent because they are either complicit in scams or terrified they will be deported for blowing the whistle.

               …            …            …

I have spoken to countless students and teachers who tell me they are reluctant to talk for fear of retribution from college operators who they say will go to great lengths to protect their visa factories that rake in millions of dollars a year from permanent-residency-seeking students.

I can confirm this climate because I have also been contacted by students who have been exploited and ripped off but who have been unwilling to go public or put their name to anything for fear of recrimination. But, notwithstanding these hurdles, Sushi Das has reported on a pandora’s box of serious abuses and scams in the overseas student industry. She has described ‘scams, bogus courses and bribery in the permanent residency driven training sector’. She obtained a report on a Melbourne private college that showed (1) it was providing the equivalent of a three-year apprenticeship in commercial cookery in just nine months, (2) course units were being taught back to front, (3) student records were not properly kept, (4) teachers’ qualifications had no certification verifying their authenticity, (5) the format of some teachers’ resumes was identical, (6) the college operator could not explain why he was using letterheads and copyright information belonging to another college, (7) a student had been charged a $29,000 fee for accommodation and (8) the college failed 54 of 85 audit criteria.

There has been reported a growing pattern of suicides among international students in Australia. While the causes of death were not identified, 51 overseas students died in the 12 months up to November last year. In some cases, students who committed suicide in Australia had pre-existing issues, but some appeared to be due to problems encountered while in Australia. A Melbourne student welfare worker has described overseas students whom he has counselled for depression as:

… feeling hopeless and trapped with debt … they didn’t know what to do. They were talking to me about getting into a car, driving into a tree or walking into the sea … (they) were planning to die.

A Melbourne international student activist, Daya Jot Singh, has described depression as a serious problem among overseas students. He said:

Many were battling loneliness and homesickness while trying to manage the pressures of finding affordable accommodation, study and employment.

Student discontent with their courses and circumstances is so great that thousands of them have marched in Sydney and Melbourne demanding federal and state action to better protect them from violence and from unscrupulous operators in the higher education sector. The executive director of the Lowy Institute, Michael Wesley, has said that Australia risks a generation of foreign students returning home with poisoned impressions, damaging some of Australia’s most important diplomatic relationships.

Then there are the students using bogus documents to support permanent residency applications. In the last financial year, Trades Recognition Australia received over 34,000 applications for skills assessment, about 10,000 of which were from foreign students. The organisation initially accepted the documents as genuine, but the federal government received information suggesting the paperwork could be bogus. The students were suspected of using fake references from employers which purported to show they had the required 900 hours of work experience in a job related to their area of study. Some students pay up to $20,000 to rogue college operators or shonky middlemen, such as unscrupulous migration agents or education agents, to obtain black-market paperwork. More than 60 students whose documents were initially accepted as genuine by the government will be forced to leave Australia if they cannot prove their documents are authentic.

I should add that the requirement for 900 hours of work experience in a job related to a student’s area of study is being rorted by some private training colleges. Their owners set up private companies, which are allegedly manufacturing something or other, which offer work experience to their students, but, instead of the normal commercial arrangements where students are paid for their labour, the students pay the college company for the privilege of working for them. This is not genuine work experience in a commercial environment; this is a scam. We do not know whether these companies make or sell anything of any consequence; that is not their reason for being. Their reason for being is to extract more money from students by getting around the requirement to have 900 hours of work experience with an employer.

Many overseas students coming to Australia have been lied to before their arrival and ripped off and exploited after their arrival. Overseas Students Support Network Australia says it has received 1,500 complaints from students relating to rip-offs by colleges and threats that they will have their visa revoked if they do not pay fees up-front. One overseas student told the ABC program PM:

“Even though I was attending classes, I was being marked absent by staff, so I then asked for a letter of release, but they refused to give me one unless I paid an advance semester fee of $4,200 …

“I spoke to a student adviser and paid two amounts but the receipts do not contain full details of what the payments were for.

“The accountant told me I must pay more. I was told that I was being reported to immigration.”

The head of Overseas Students Support Network Australia, Robert Palmer, said:

“We’ve had a student come who was supposed to be enrolled in a nursing course, turned up at the college, said ‘I’m here for my course’, the next day they said ‘yes, you’re in hairdressing.

Not nursing; hairdressing—incredible. He said:

“We’ve had another student that came in and they were going to do motor mechanics and they found out they were enrolled in a business marketing course.”

Not motor mechanics; business marketing—again, incredible.

Last year, two former staff of the Malka Group in Box Hill lodged a complaint with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority claiming the standard of English language required for courses in aged care and child care was lowered to pass students who would otherwise have failed. According to the complaint, teachers were told to dumb down the assessment so that students could pass it. According to the complaint, the resulting lack of language skills meant students risked committing potentially fatal errors once they found jobs, particularly in fields that involved caring for sick people, the elderly and children.

I fear that this is not an isolated example. I fear that a focus on bringing in the dollars, rather than on ensuring that students have the necessary English language skills, is in fact quite widespread. I believe that in years gone by it was immigration authorities who were responsible for applying English language tests but that in more recent years it has been the universities and colleges who have administered the tests. Given that the universities and private colleges are collecting fees from the students, they have a clear conflict of interest in this matter. I have had people with years of experience working in this field tell me that English language standards have been lowered and that the department of immigration’s role in deciding who comes to Australia has been compromised.

In the last three months, we have seen at least three training colleges go bankrupt, leaving students who paid fees in advance just as badly ripped off as when a travel agency goes broke after taking customers’ money for an overseas holiday that is never delivered. Melbourne International College has gone broke, Sterling College in Sydney has gone broke and, in late August, Totally Indigo hairdressing and beauty college in Dandenong filed for bankruptcy. The latter had enrolled more than double the number of international students it was registered to handle. These three college collapses affected more than 850 international students.

I mentioned earlier that, back in August, the Minister for Education announced a review into international education in Australia, to be headed by former Liberal MP Bruce Baird. Mr Baird will review the Education Services for Overseas Students Act and, in particular, four areas of its legal framework: supporting the interests of students, delivering quality as the cornerstone of Australian education, effective regulation, and sustainability of the international education sector. I understand that that review is expected to conclude in early 2010. Written submissions will be invited in response to an issues paper, and there will also be a targeted consultation process.

I welcome the review and I encourage those with an interest in these issues to make a submission. I hope that the review will introduce measures to crack down on the scams and rorts which have plagued and discredited this industry. It is sorely in need of a clean-up. I hope the review examines decoupling the link between education and permanent residency which has led to these scams flourishing and examines introducing a cooling-off period whereby students return to their home countries after completing their courses here. I hope the review acts to address the decline in English language standards. I support the actions which have been taken by the government and I commend this bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. I begin by stressing the national importance of the overseas student market in Australian education services. The coalition support the intent of this bill; however, we believe it does not go far enough. We have proposed three amendments to the legislation with the core intent of improving the quality of education service delivery to overseas students.

It is not really well understood that overseas students represent Australia’s third largest export market, contributing $15.4 billion to the national economy in 2008. As a result, it is absolutely vital to the economy that such a significant services export be maintained. It has been a growth industry. The overwhelming experience of international students in Australia has been positive. I understand that 543,898 international students were enrolled in education programs in Australia in 2008—a 20.7 per cent increase on 2007 enrolments—with over 100,000 students originating from India.

The Adelaide Advertiser reported on 22 September that since 2007 the number of foreign students coming to Australia for vocational education has doubled, with just over 97,000 students starting courses by July 2009. I also understand that during 2007-08 over 278,000 student visas were granted—an increase of 21.69 per cent. Over 39,000 students came to Australia from India and over 31,000 came from China. Korea, the USA, Malaysia, Nepal, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are also sources of overseas students.

The majority of the international students are in higher education. Management and commerce take the most enrolments, followed by information technology. The vocational education and training sector has experienced rapid growth due to the high regard worldwide for the valuable work skills provided and the quality of the programs here in Australia. The English language intensive course has also experienced serious growth. In spite of Australia’s reputation as a provider of top-quality education for students from around the world clearly demonstrated by these figures, we are aware that Australia’s provision of education for overseas students has come under scrutiny recently with alarming allegations made against some private education providers. Some students, despite complying with all the requirements, are being forced to pay fees over and above their agreed original payment.

The negativity surrounding Australia’s overseas student market has been exacerbated by international media coverage of protests in Australia by Indian students following a number of violent assaults. Given that the majority of overseas students come from India, this is of course a very serious concern. Just last month the Australian reported attacks on four Indian men in Melbourne. Such violence is clearly dampening efforts to promote Australia as a safe destination for overseas students. On the same page, the Australian revealed that a two-storey Brisbane suburban home was being used to house up to 37 foreign students. This was reportedly to service the $6,000 a month lease to cover the education agent’s upstairs home office.

It is of great concern that Australia’s reputation as a safe and ethical provider of higher education is at a risk as a result of the practices of some unscrupulous providers and education agents. I note that an article in the Australian on 16 September reported that 18 private vocational colleges have had their overseas student licences cancelled since 2001 and that the failure of four colleges, involving 3,000 students, is being dealt with at this time.

There is no doubt that the actions of the providers and agents has damaged and is damaging this important industry. Therefore, the government must act to address these issues immediately and prevent further damage or loss of confidence. This is why the first amendment the coalition has proposed is aimed at ensuring that regulatory bodies follow a risk management approach when determining the re-registration of providers. Improving the accountability of not only colleges and education agents but also state and territory regulators is an integral part of this. The coalition believes it is essential that education agents are providing reliable and up-to-date information to prospective students to enable those students to make very sound, informed decisions. We will be pushing the government to ensure that all providers of tertiary education are appropriately audited and monitored.

The coalition’s second proposed amendment to improve the services provided by education agents will require them to undertake qualified training. The qualified training will cost approximately $400 and will result in more accurate information being provided to prospective students. We believe this measure will help ensure that the education experience in Australia is in line with the individual expectations of overseas students and is also consistent with the information they are provided with prior to deciding which educational institution or provider to attend.

The third concern of the coalition surrounds the default fund for reimbursing overseas students should their provider cease operation. This fund will be responsible for reimbursing students when the fund manager is unable to secure a suitable alternative training place for the student and provide greater confidence and surety in our system for the students themselves. The coalition’s third amendment endeavours to improve accountability and transparency of the Education Services for Overseas Students Assurance Fund. The amendment recommends that this be done by the fund manager being required to provide the minister with a written report in each instance of provider default where a claim is made on the fund. The minister will then have 30 days to table this in parliament.

International students certainly need reassurance and the confidence that the Australian government takes their concerns seriously and will do everything in its power to prevent student exploitation by unscrupulous providers. The coalition’s amendments will provide additional safeguards prior to the release of the Baird review of the education services for overseas students legislation. As I mentioned earlier, the coalition value and recognise the importance of the overseas student market to Australia, which is why we are proposing these amendments to this bill. We are urging the government to take a stronger stance on this legislation and accept the three amendments proposed by the coalition.

I understand Minister Gillard met with a group of international students to discuss issues in relation to this legislation. Not surprisingly, the international students at the hand-picked roundtable meeting poorly represented or excluded various ethnic groups and representative bodies. I also recall the minister recently holding another hand-picked, under-represented roundtable meeting with students to discuss the Youth Allowance legislation. Students in coalition electorates, which cover the vast majority of regional and rural areas, were excluded. I know for a fact there were no students from Western Australia included. There certainly were no students from my electorate included, and my electorate has a significant number of regional and rural students who will be affected by the government’s proposed changes to Youth Allowance.

It is no wonder the coalition is extremely worried about education under this minister and the Labor Party and is proposing these amendments, given that the Building the Education Revolution program—a program that is being plagued by waste and mismanagement and, clearly, a part-time minister—has already seen at least a $1.5 billion blow-out. In fact, the $14.7 billion program is now a $16.2 billion program, all built on funds borrowed from the taxpayer that will have to be paid back by the very students who are currently attending the schools receiving the funding. It is effectively intergenerational debt, courtesy of the Labor Party. It is indicative of the level of concern that the BER program is being investigated by the Auditor-General.

Day after day we have heard in this parliament during question time of the problems being experienced by schools and have seen very serious examples of waste and mismanagement. There is the payment of exorbitant fees to consultants and project managers. There are reports of profiteering. There are the examples of $3.5 million allocated for plaques, $3.8 million allocated for display signs outside schools which have been found by the Electoral Commission to be outside the rules and $250,000 spent on a one-student school. We are given example after example of buildings that schools do not want or have no choice over. Our proposed amendments reflect our concern that the minister has a history of mismanagement, demonstrated by the trade training centres that have not been delivered; the computers in schools program, which blew out from $800 million to $2.2 billion; and, critically for students and families in my electorate, the attack on regional and rural students through the Youth Allowance debacle.

As I mentioned earlier, the number of foreign students studying in Australia has doubled since 2007. Whilst foreign students bring benefits to the local region and economy, it must be asked why this increase is occurring. The Australian Financial Review commented on 21 October that the increase in Asian students studying in Australia is largely due to geographical closeness. As I said earlier, the coalition is extremely concerned about the safety and support measures that the government has taken so far to improve the international student experience. The coalition believes that we must ensure that international students receive an excellent education experience in Australia but do not use their education primarily as a pathway to permanent migration. However, we must also recognise the tremendous contribution to our economic productivity, particularly in regional areas, and to our society that is made by many graduates who do migrate following their studies.

The events over the past few months make it clear that we need to do more to ensure that reputable providers and our best universities are not undermined by unscrupulous providers. The events also demonstrate that the government has not done enough to date to improve the system of regulating providers of tertiary education in Australia. The reputation of the Australian education industry is now being compromised, given that the Prime Minister and Minister Gillard have not responded quickly and effectively. There needs to be a fully independent inquiry into the regulation and registration of education providers and a crackdown on education agents and those who are providing fraudulent documentation to students. Education agents should be brought under the same type of accreditation, registration and monitoring regime as migration agents. The quality and integrity of courses must be scrutinised and better monitored and regulated. More educational institutions need to adopt a mentoring role to ensure positive relationships with their peers and the community. The role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman should also be expanded to have jurisdiction over investigating complaints by international students.

I support the coalition’s proposed amendments to improve the government’s legislation and to provide appropriately for overseas students. In my electorate of Forrest, the number of international student enrolments at the South West Regional College of TAFE rose from 39 in 2008 to 67 in 2009. The TAFE college anticipates that the enrolment numbers in 2010 will remain similar to those of the current year. The international students currently studying in my electorate come from approximately 29 different countries. Western Australia is fortunate in that it is the closest entry point for African and Asian students. This, however, must not be taken for granted. Australia must work hard to retain and increase the number of Asian students studying in Australia. As the Financial Review reported earlier this year, Europe is muscling in on the Asian student market. The report highlighted that Germany, Denmark and Sweden are upping the ante on student recruitment in some of Australia’s biggest source markets in Asia.

I have been informed that there are a number of students from Chile who have expressed interest in studying viticulture in the town of Margaret River—a famous name—in my electorate. However, the absence of affordable housing and suitable accommodation means that it is difficult to supply these prospective students with a suitable package. This is an ongoing issue that affects not only prospective international students but also many working families in my electorate. International students contribute directly to south-west communities. Not only does the education institution benefit from increased enrolment numbers but the money the students spend during their time in the community benefits the local economy. If the government is serious about protecting and maintaining Australia’s third largest export it must tighten the legislation.

In conclusion, the coalition welcome the intent of this bill, but, as I said, we believe it does not go far enough. I urge the government to implement the three proposed amendments and the further amendments that will be made in the near future, once the Senate committee and the Baird review have reported. I note that the Baird review is focusing on four main areas: the welfare of students, the quality of services, regulation and the sustainability of the industry. An interim report will be provided by November for consideration by COAG, which is considering an international student strategy. The concerns expressed by students at the lack of information about education providers that is available to them before they make their decision on where to study, as well as work, transport, accommodation and personal safety issues, will no doubt form part of the deliberations of the Senate committee and the Baird review. I will read with great interest the recommendations of their reports. I support the coalition’s proposed amendments. Thank you.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak in support of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. This is a bill which is of vital importance to our education system as a learning and professional pathway for both Australians and our overseas student market. I would like to commend the recent efforts of the Minister for Education, the Hon. Julia Gillard, in developing a quick and formative response to this very pressing issue.

I stand here today in full support of the Rudd Labor government’s measures aimed at protecting Australia’s reputation for delivering quality education services by updating and enhancing the operation of existing legislation. This amendment bill establishes a regulatory regime for the provision of international education, and a training service to protect the interests of overseas students, through the establishment of minimum standards of tuition and financial assistance. It also complements Australia’s migration laws by ensuring that providers collect and report information relevant to the administration of the law relating to student visas.

This amendment bill will ensure that the use of education agents by international education providers remains both transparent and open to accountability. An improvement in the regulatory procedures of our international education sector will ensure that the general welfare of overseas students is protected from exploitation by unscrupulous operators. This is an issue which has become a serious cause for concern well beyond our shores, and I want to note the Prime Minister’s recent prompt reassurance to his Indian counterpart following attacks on international students and particularly Indian students. This reassurance reflects the government’s commitment to ensuring that our hospitality towards those who come to enjoy our world-class education institutions continues to hold the first-rate reputation that it deserves.

I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the success of the Minister for Education’s most recent trip to India, which I believe—and most of us believe—helped to strengthen our close working relationship and facilitated making the reforms outlined in this bill more effective. I welcome the minister’s announcement of the formation of an annual joint working group on student mobility, which met for the first time in India some weeks ago.

The sad truth, though, is where there is a market that attracts the growth and vitality of our education institutions there seems to be the existence of unscrupulous training providers who want to take advantage of our well-deserved reputation by exploiting those who are most vulnerable to their dodgy practices. This is not a new phenomenon. It is an issue that has been known to the education community for some time. It is an issue whose rectification has been a long time coming. I need to congratulate the government for finally doing what even the previous government failed to do in rectifying the situation.

I want to commend the Minister for Education’s launch last month of the international student roundtable. The roundtable serves to provide international students with a platform from which to voice their concerns, in order for them to be addressed effectively and directly. It sends out a strong message that we are determined to manage this problem ourselves rather than push students into having their frustrations vented through other channels of communication, particularly through sensationalised media coverage—the likes of which we have seen on a number of occasions recently and the likes of which we all understand harm our reputation and cause disturbances in our community.

The vitality of our $15.5 billion overseas student market—our third-largest export industry—is not only important to the general economy and well-being of Australia but also serves as the financial underpinning of our higher education system. We need therefore to make sure that we continue to maintain the trust of the nearly half a million international students who often serve as cultural ambassadors for our country after they have finished their courses and returned to their homes. They serve as a source of first-rate intellectual capital for both our education institutions and of our country as a whole. We cannot allow these substandard operators to literally ruin both our international reputation and competitive position in this lucrative market.

The government has recognised that a safety net for failed institutions alone is not enough and, as such, the measures in this bill attempt to ensure that vocational training courses are properly and effectively regulated. Members might remember a program that aired on the ABC’s Four Corners in July. As reported in that program, it is now strikingly clear that students are being lured into purchasing dubious certifications for work hours, which they are told is required for residency status. The Age newspaper also extensively reported, in May, that foreign students are being sold certificates and phoney work-experience references. This is in addition to being presented with unqualified instructors who offer students a result not on based merit but correlating to the thousands of dollars in cash payments they extract from students through the false lure of permanent residency.

This appalling practice is putting students in debt and is creating an illegal black market that not only damages our reputation but also sends vulnerable students into bankruptcy and out into our streets. The consequences of this corrosive culture, within some institutions, on the welfare of international students has been detailed by many newspapers—by the Australian newspaper, in particular, in June. I recall this particular report. The newspaper reported that student support services were being overwhelmed with appeals for help, with students being referred to the Salvation Army as they found themselves homeless and unable to afford basic necessities.

Further to the case recently involving four international students who sought shelter at a railway station, the Australian Federation of International Students reported a fourfold increase in requests for assistance almost on a weekly basis since the airing of that story. The appeals for help relate to a wide range of issues, which include welfare assistance in regard to issues regarding landlords, food, shelter and homelessness. This is in no small measure due to the exploitative practices to which they have fallen victim. Students should not be forced into working conditions that are not compatible with their existing study commitments, nor should they be forced into substandard living arrangements in order to rectify the wrongs committed by dodgy operators and unscrupulous migration agents.

Australia takes pride in giving everyone a fair go and it is this standard of a fair go that we aim to measure up to. These unscrupulous operators who rob students of their hard-earned work and money have been tried and found wanting. It is clear to us all that the vast majority of our almost half a million international students do receive the high-quality education that you would expect to find in Australia. However, it is these few rogue operators who exploit vulnerable students who ruin it for the vast majority of those institutions that adhere to the required code of conduct that is obviously expected of them.

Considering the highly leveraged and concentrated nature of our overseas student market, we risk losing a large portion of this industry if we fail to act in addressing the concerns that the governments of our supply countries have demanded that we address. We saw what happened to large parts of New Zealand’s export education industry when it failed to adequately address this issue. The government understands the importance of our bilateral relationships and the need to ensure that the concerns of our international trading partners are addressed in line with our own professional standards. As such, I welcome Minister Gillard’s recent announcement of a joint project by our universities to establish a new and innovative Australia-India institute at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with various nationwide universities.

I commend the announcement of the provision of $8 million in federal funding under the government’s Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund. This project will help ensure that both students and researchers in India, the world’s largest democracy—one of our largest and key sources of international students and a major source of capital for the overseas student market—better understand the nature of Australian society. Not only will this project give our own students and researchers the opportunity to better understand the increasing role of this key emerging economy; it will also further attract more students from abroad to our education and training institutions. The importance of this bill and its attempt to maintain our first-class standards cannot be overstated—nor can our need to reassure our local Indian community here in Australia that we are taking measures to ensure that they do not consider themselves as a constituency targeted for violence or exploitation.

The requirement for all institutions to re-register through the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students addresses the inherent weaknesses in the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, which have long been exploited by crooked operators. In doing so, the adjustments ensure that the overhaul of the international education sector will address the underlying factors which, by the very nature of the extraordinary growth of this market over the years, have allowed for the industry to operate without adequate regulation and proper oversight. The re-registration process will also ensure that overseas students who come to Australia are able to do so with the full confidence that all registered international education providers and education agents meet the world-class standards that Australia has to offer. It will serve to strengthen the confidence that international students have in our higher education system as well as, importantly, the faith that we as Australians have in all levels of our education system.

The bill recognises where the fault lines of the existing legislation are and serves to address the specific nature of the industry. Considering that 70 per cent of Australia’s international students seek advice through education agents for assistance in their future study endeavours here in Australia, it is important that we increase the confidence that is placed in them. These agents inevitably serve as the gateway to our education system for international students and, as such, it is crucial that the industry is regulated in a manner that is reflective of our standards.

For too long, some have been fixated on the notions of market flexibility as a means to avoid their regulatory responsibilities. This bill will ensure that greater flexibility is directed at administering suspensions effectively. As Professor Denise Bradley, the head of the Bradley review, noted at an Austrade conference held in August in Melbourne:

We have a responsibility to people who come to this country believing they are coming to an education system that is properly managed and regulated … We have a situation in vocational education and training that has allowed the entry of small, totally for-profit operators—where people had no real experience in education. We need to have quite strong oversight of a market like that where there is major growth.

The regulatory mechanisms of the bill recognise that we can no longer allow dodgy agents to place their primary focus on short-term profit ahead of Australia’s long-term interests—and, indeed, the interests of the students who they purport to serve. Events of the recent past have shown that, if this crucial link in the chain of our industry remains unregulated, we risk undermining our entire education services for overseas students. The bill recognises, however, that with effective regulation comes flexibility in how we administer suspensions as well as how we effectively manage the operation of the provisions under provider default.

This is why I am encouraged by the government’s commitment to creating the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which will be responsible for managing the government’s new regulatory and quality assurance framework. These regulatory mechanisms serve to strengthen the industry and ensure that only those who display both a genuine approach to the provision of services and a demonstrated capacity to provide quality education will be able to meet the requirements for registering to provide education to overseas students. By clarifying the definition of what is in fact a ‘suitable alternative course’, we will improve compliance measures and ensure consistency amongst all levels of government. This will allow for conditions imposed by states and territories on education providers to be nationally recognised through the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students—a mechanism in which all 1,314 institutions will be forced to re-register by the end of next year.

As the Deputy Prime Minister recently noted:

In times when criticisms and problems are raised, it should be clear where lines of responsibility are.

The federal government has recognised that only through a national alignment of the regulatory procedures are we able to build an effective national skills base. By delivering quality as the foundation of Australian education through the regulatory measures outlined in this bill, we will be supporting the interests of students as well as creating a sustainable international education sector. The amendments will restore confidence in our education system and will serve to further attract new students from across the world. This bill is an investment in our education system as much as it is an investment in our nation’s future and our long-term capacity for growth.

As the member for Calwell, I know too well the benefits that multiculturalism brings to the wider Australian social landscape. Calwell, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, boasts a large and vibrant multicultural community that has added immensely to the rich culture of this country. For an egalitarian and inclusive society like Australia, multiculturalism is a central component of what makes us aware of both who we are and what we have to offer to those who come to Australia, as well as what we can learn from them. The recent attacks on Indian students, coupled with the irregularities that are present within the international education sector, have threatened to drive our third most important export market into the ground and of course damage our reputation as a diverse, cohesive and inclusive society.

Having had direct experience with students in the many years in which I was a teacher, I know too well that education is much more than a certificate that is handed down at the end of the school term. Education is a process—it is about the patterns of teaching and learning that make up the whole learning process. We need to protect that process. Apart from the economic opportunities that this market presents for us, the social capital that our students acquire as they sit in classrooms with students from all over the world further adds to their learning experience. I can say through experience and with confidence that it is crucial that we continue to provide our own students here in Australia with these vital opportunities. Universities Australia’s commissioned study released last week confirms this view. Universities Australia chair, Professor Peter Coaldrake, notes:

International education enriches and changes Australian education and deepens relationships between nations. These social and cultural benefits are clearly of paramount importance in a world where international relations are undergoing rapid changes, and where Australia’s future depends critically on its ability to establish diverse and productive international connections.

Whilst some unscrupulous operators may consider it their priority to take advantage of some vulnerable students, the government has shown that Australia’s priority lies in ensuring that the provision of quality education to students who invest so much into our education system is kept at standards that reflect our capacity to deliver world-class education.

I do want in closing to make some comments about the former federal member for Cook, the Hon. Bruce Baird. Having worked with the former member for Cook over the years here in this place and on the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Bruce’s appointment as head of the review into the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000. I know first-hand of Bruce’s sensitivities towards issues of human rights and his commitment to the rights of the individual. Beyond the economic considerations, this is primarily an issue which boils down to those students who have fallen victim to the exploitative practices of predatory agents. The appointment of Bruce Baird reflects the government’s commitment first and foremost to the interests of the nation, above party lines, on an issue which is of concern to us all.

Finally, the bill reflects the government’s strong commitment to ensuring that the full extent of its legislative power is used in sanctioning those that continue to operate beyond the confines of the law. The legislative instrument that the national code provides sends out a strong message to providers—pull up or opt out. Through this bill, international students who choose to come to Australia can rest assured that the Australian government will always continue to serve their best interests, in line with the interests of our own students. In creating a strengthened compliance regime, this amendment bill will go a long way to ensuring that education providers assume their responsibilities and legislative obligations towards all students, whether local or foreign. By effectively regulating our international education sector, the government has gone a long way to ensuring a sustainable and quality-driven education system in Australia that reflects the interests of students. (Time expired)

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is one of the best places in the world to be educated. It is because of this that education is Australia’s third largest export, worth $15.4 billion to the Australian economy in 2008 alone. There are many other areas in our society which benefit from this industry. The Colombo Plan, introduced under the Menzies government in 1950, was the beginning of international student education in Australia. Today, Endeavour Scholarships provide opportunities to students from across the Asia-Pacific. Many students that have studied in Australia have gone on to be leaders in their own countries, and the contacts and relationships they forged as young students have proved of invaluable benefit to our nation. Not only have we forged stronger links with many countries across the globe but for each international student the contribution to the Australian economy is approximately $29,000 per annum.

Australia’s high standard of education draws students from all over the world. It is important that our institutions continue to maintain their reputations as reliable and high-quality education providers internationally. In my home state of Western Australia, international students and the education industry make a significant contribution to the state economy. International students are estimated to contribute $860 million to the Western Australian economy. Curtin University of Technology, which sits within my own electorate of Swan, is highly regarded in the international market and has developed long-term relationships with over 30 education providers in the Asia-Pacific region. Curtin recently announced a proposal to build a new medical school to address both local and international health needs. According to a 2006 World Health Organisation report, there is a global shortage of 4.3 million health care professionals. A 70 per cent increase in healthcare professionals is required to rectify this shortage. Curtin University’s commitment to providing high-quality education, particularly in the important area of health care, is a benefit to Australia and to the world. This is just one part of Australia’s strong reputation as an education-providing nation.

Likewise, in the area of primary and high school education there are a number of schools in my electorate which take on overseas students as boarders. Schools such as Wesley College, Penrhos College and Aquinas College all cater to the specific needs of international students in primary and secondary education. As recently as 5 August I visited Wesley College, and even more recently, on 27 August, I visited Penrhos College to see the programs they are running there.

These schools rely, in part, on their reputation as quality education providers to attract international students to Australia. They continue to work hard at maintaining and improving that reputation. Our reputation is abundantly important in this area. We may not realise how important word of mouth is for this sector of the economy. Good reputations take years of hard work to build, and in the case of educational institutions and our national reputation it takes generations. While it takes years to build good reputations, they can come crashing down in a matter of seconds following a single event, a slip-up or even an uncontrollable event. What may seem to be a small or minor incident can do untold damage to the reputations of our educational institutions.

Following a series of violent crimes against international students, the security and safety of international students appeared threatened. While the threat to individual safety was no more or less a threat to international students than to all Australians, perception is everything when we are talking about reputation. These incidents made international headlines, and universities needed to take action to reassure international students that their safety was not threatened if they chose to study in Australia.

Australia’s international reputation as a reliable provider of education services is under threat for a second time. Issues have arisen that could damage our reputation. If these issues go unanswered, there is a real risk that Australia will see a decline in international enrolments, which is not only damaging to the education sector as an industry but also dangerous to our reputation as a nation. While our schools and universities continue to climb the ranks of international excellence, our reputation is being damaged by the practices of some unscrupulous providers and education agents. Rumours of false promises being made to students who want to come to Australia to study are a risk to our reputation. While most education agents and providers are doing the right thing, the rumours generated by those who are unscrupulous are doing damage. More than 122,000 people are employed in the international education industry in Australia, and it is important that the 122,000 that are doing the right thing do not suffer because of a small group who are not following the rules.

We need to take action to defend the good reputation of our education providers, who, through no fault of their own, find Australia’s reputation at risk of being seriously damaged. The way to defend the reputation of our providers is by improving the accountability of not just colleges and education agents but also state and territory regulators. We need to ensure that education agents are providing reliable and up-to-date information to prospective students.

The third concern of the coalition relates to the default fund for reimbursing overseas students if their provider ceases operations. The legislation as proposed falls well short of providing the appropriate assurances for overseas students. That is why the coalition have proposed some straightforward amendments aimed at tightening up the legislation and preventing students being duped by incompetent or dishonest providers. We have introduced amendments aimed at ensuring regulatory bodies follow a risk management approach when determining re-registration of providers. Regulatory bodies are there to regulate. If they are not doing that job properly, there is no point in having them. These amendments are important for ensuring that regulatory bodies are doing their job properly, because ineffective regulation will allow unscrupulous education agents to continue to damage Australia’s reputation as a reliable education provider.

The coalition’s proposal will also improve services by requiring education agents to undertake qualified training. Better trained education agents will make a significant difference to the quality of services provided by these agents to international students and will help to avoid some of the problems that the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009 seeks to address. Given the recent spate of provider closures, the ESOS Assurance Fund must be close to exhausted after constant plundering.

The coalition’s amendments will also seek to improve accountability and transparency of the fund. The fund manager will be required to provide the Minister for Education with a written report in each instance of provider default where a claim is made on the fund. The minister will then have 30 days to table this in parliament. Financial accountability is highly important, and ensuring that the ESOS Assurance Fund is properly managed is an important part of that process of accountability. It is very important that anyone dealing with another person’s money be held to account, whether they be the manager of a fund or a government.

These amendments are needed in order to tidy up this legislation. It is essential that we maintain and improve our reputation as an international education provider. Our schools and universities are doing their bit, and it is up to us to get to the heart of the issue by improving training, improving accountability and improving risk management. Our amendments seek to achieve this and to make sure that this legislation actually does what it claims it sets out to do. The legislation needs to be tightened up and these amendments are the first step in the process of doing that. Further amendments may be likely in the near future, depending on the Baird review, which is yet to report. There is a Senate committee focusing on the welfare of international students and one that is specifically looking at this legislation, and I believe that report was tabled today. Once these reports are received, further amendments may be needed to tighten the legislation. I recommend the bill to the House, with our amendments, but I specify that we must not make it tougher for the education providers that are doing the right thing.

While we are on education, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate my son, Jarrad, who completed year 12 today. He and his schoolmates finished school today, so I guess they will be taking advantage or creating hay at the school before they leave at the end of the week.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will they be home listening to this, do you think?

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hope so. At least he has achieved something that his father never achieved, which is to complete year 12. As he moves into adulthood, I wish him all the best to pursue his dreams and to live a long, prosperous and healthy life. As I advise all young people, I now tell him: do not be afraid to seek the truth, particularly when it comes to politics. Congratulations, Jarrad.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good advice, and well done!

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. This bill, in conjunction with recent changes to our migration legislation, works to strengthen and improve the quality of Australian education for international students. By ensuring that the necessary checks and balances are in place, we can be more confident that the quality of education provided to international students is the same high quality they expect from an Australian institution. The bill also serves to demonstrate to the international community that we are serious about providing quality education to our international students.

I acknowledge the comments by Professor Bradley that were published in the Australian on 27 August 2009 highlighting the Australian government’s ‘responsibility to the people who come to this country believing they are coming to an education system that is properly managed and regulated’. This is exactly what we are seeking to redress with this bill. I am confident that the bill will work to immediately improve accountability and service while thorough and comprehensive reviews are conducted by both COAG and Hon. Bruce Baird, the former member for Cook.

Recent figures show that international education is Australia’s third biggest export industry contributing some $15 billion annually to our economy. However, this export has more than a purely financial benefit for our country. I reiterate the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister in her address at the opening of the International Student Roundtable on 15 September this year where she highlighted that since 1950 ‘More than a million international students have become ambassadors for this country’. It is clear therefore that the long-term benefits to Australia of an Australian education for overseas students are the invaluable benefits in trade, foreign affairs and cultural understanding that we will see for many years into the future. The international students that we welcome to Australia and train today can become invaluable ambassadors for our country in the future. However, I acknowledge that the excellent reputation that we have built has been somewhat damaged by the recent spate of media reports highlighting the irregular practices of a very small number of education providers. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 16 July 2009 the experiences of a student who advised that ‘his cooking college had no kitchen for months and when it was finally installed, no running water’. The article went on to detail another’s experience where he ‘could not complete his IT course because his school did not have enough computers or licensed software’. This is not what we expect or even tolerate from our providers. Instead, reports such as these have served to strengthen the government’s commitment to tightening the regulation of education providers. It is providers such as these that are targeted by the bill we are debating.

However, this bill goes further than simply improving regulation and services onshore. It also requires the registration of education agents who operate overseas on behalf of these education providers. These agents are largely responsible for placing overseas students in an Australian course. The registration of these agents will help ensure that those who are promoting Australian education options to overseas students are doing so in a manner which is honest and transparent. Therefore, the bill is also about accountability not only for local providers but for these overseas agents.

I am pleased that, in addition to this bill, the government has committed to bring forward a review of the education services for overseas students legislative framework to the 2009-10 financial year, which will be headed by Hon. Bruce Baird. I share the sentiments of Mr Baird when he said in a report in the Sydney Morning Herald of 8 August, 2009:

… the review was critical for securing the long-term credibility of Australian education in the international marketplace.

This is an issue that I have been following closely since a constituent of mine, who runs a vocational education and training college in Sydney, highlighted to me her concerns surrounding the ‘enormous disparity in the quality of teaching, educational facilities and general industry professionalism’ in the vocational education sector. Feedback my constituent has received from students who previously attended courses offered by other providers echoed those concerns raised in the Sydney Morning Herald article of 16 July that I referred to. This feedback includes the observation that in a small number of private colleges:

… the facilities do not provide adequate space, training rooms, appropriately air conditioned rooms or rest room facilities …

My constituent goes on to highlight:

Given that (some) private providers are located in inappropriate premises, students experience overcrowding and are unable to access suitable training and workplace facilities to undertake their course requirements.

My constituent believes that this has occurred because of ‘inadequate quality control’. I am cognisant that earlier changes to migration legislation by the Howard government led to enormous growth primarily in the vocational education sector. It appears that this growth was largely due to a perception that studying in Australia was an easier path to permanent migration. This, unfortunately, allowed providers to operate to maximise profit by linking a permanent visa to completion of their course. Less attention was paid to the quality of the training program on offer. I too share my constituent’s concern that many international students were previously ‘too reluctant to come forward and raise genuine service delivery concerns due to cultural, linguistic and monetary concerns’.

It is my belief that this bill will improve quality control and that additional measures being introduced, such as a hotline for students to raise concerns, will also help to address my constituent’s and the wider community’s concerns. We want to leave a good impression for students who study in our country. We derive an enormous amount of export revenue from students who choose to study at our universities, TAFEs and colleges and we have some of the best learning institutions in Australia.

Furthermore, changes made to the critical skills list earlier this year have contributed to reducing the perception that studying in Australia will allow someone to circumvent the immigration system and gain permanent residency. This government is not about to allow that. We are determined, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would have noticed in the media over the last few days, to protect our borders in terms of those people who choose to come to Australia, however they choose to come. It is important for the government to verify the identity of those people who come to Australia. It is important to check the health of people coming to Australia who are seeking to visit our country, whether short term or long term. And of course, most importantly, it is important to consider national security before people can come to our country. That is the bottom line in respect of anyone who comes into our country.

This bill, coupled with the recent roundtable for international students held here in Canberra, shows that we are committed to restoring our reputation and ensuring the international students we educate today get a quality education, remember Australia fondly and carry this positive experience through into their future dealings in the international marketplace. I am confident that this bill will go a long way to ensuring that our education providers, both public and private, academic and vocational, remain at the top in terms of reputation and quality and that, for many years into the future, students from overseas will choose to come to our country, which has some of the highest standards of education anywhere in the world.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I would like to thank all the members who have spoken on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009. The Australian government is deeply committed to ensuring international students who choose to study in Australia receive a high-quality education. The Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 gives legislative force to this commitment.

As we all know, much has been said in recent months about the quality of our international education sector. With this in mind, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Re-registration of Providers and Other Measures) Bill 2009 makes changes to the act to strengthen its operation. The changes to the act are part of a range of measures the government is working through. Importantly, the full review of the legislation currently being conducted by the Hon. Bruce Baird and the work of COAG in developing with the states and territories a national international-students strategy are still ongoing.

I welcome very much the bipartisan approach of those opposite and the shadow minister at the table to the issues that have surfaced recently in the international education sector. I note that the amendments proposed by the shadow minister are well-intended and I believe we have been working well with him in good faith to ensure the spirit of the amendments is addressed.

The amendments that will be made to the act by the current legislation will require a re-registration of all providers. This measure is designed to bolster confidence in the quality of the international education sector by reducing the numbers of high-risk providers currently in or seeking entry into the sector. To ensure this, the changes will introduce two additional and tighter registration criteria. These are that the provider’s principal purpose is the provision of education and that the provider has demonstrated the capacity to provide education of a satisfactory standard. We know, and I am sure the shadow minister would agree with this, that most of our education providers are delivering quality education. Unfortunately, they are being tarnished by some shonky providers. The re-registration process will allow the providers who are re-registered to make a genuine claim to quality.

I am aware that when we move to consideration in detail the shadow minister will propose an amendment for an additional provision that the state designated authorities use a risk management approach when considering whether to recommend a provider for re-registration. This was also the approach agreed by all responsible state and territory ministers at the first meeting of the Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment held in September. My department is working closely with the state and territory regulators through the Joint Committee on International Education to finalise a nationally consistent framework for implementation according to agreed criteria of risk. I have also asked my state and territory colleagues to look at assessing all high-risk providers for re-registration as a priority before 30 June 2010. So I think in terms of policy intent we can see that we are all coming from the same page.

The amendment that introduces a requirement for providers to maintain a list of all persons, whether within or outside Australia, who represent them or act on their behalf is designed to ensure that current and intending overseas students have access to accurate information—that is, the legislation before the parliament is strengthening provisions in relation to education agents. Unfortunately, some education agents, many of whom operate from other countries, are not within our jurisdiction and consequently the regulatory tools for those education agents do not lie within the hands of this government or this nation. However, we want to ensure that international education providers in Australia engage agents who are behaving ethically. These measures will introduce transparency in the engagement of agents by education providers and assist in improving accountability in the use of agents. The registered provider will be required to publish a list of their agents either on their website or in any manner prescribed by the regulations.

The shadow minister has proposed that education providers use only education agents who have completed an education agents training course and are members of a professional body for education agents if one is specified in the regulations. I am happy to support the intent of this proposal and I suggest that these requirements be put into regulations. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, I have already given an undertaking to consult with stakeholders on regulatory changes regarding agents. Secondly, as agent training and professional associations are still developing, the regulations will allow greater flexibility for making adjustments to the policy over time.

This bill is also going to clarify a number of matters. It introduces processes that will increase the accountability of international education and training providers under the national code of practice. For example, the new provision allowing conditions imposed by states and territories on education providers to be recognised by the Commonwealth will help to stop the situation where providers operate at overcapacity. The shadow minister has suggested a further amendment requiring the fund manager to provide a written report following a provider default. This report would outline the number of students placed in a suitable alternative course and/or claims on the assurance fund. This measure will increase accountability for actions taken under the fund and provide an early alert to government of any pressures on the ESOS consumer protection mechanisms. For these reasons the government will amend the legislation to include this provision. However, after discussion with the shadow minister, we have agreed that 60 days is a more realistic time frame for reporting. I thank the shadow minister for his cooperation in that regard.

Given that this legislation builds on the government’s work on a range of measures to ensure a quality international education sector for the many students who come to Australia each year, I look forward to this piece of legislation being given a speedy passage through the Senate. There has been good cooperation on this legislation to date and I look forward to that good cooperation continuing.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.