Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to remark upon the government's ongoing failure to save the international education sector. It's a stunning Australian success story of growth, post the global financial crisis. It's been decimated by COVID-19, as you'd imagine, due to the necessary border closures. The impacts are enormous and profound. Enrolments have plummeted, hundreds of thousands of students are stuck offshore and providers are now in crisis. But the worst is yet to come. Dealing with this is now urgent; it's overdue. It's our fourth-biggest most valuable export sector, worth $40 billion, on the last figures. I will quote the Mitchell Institute, who remarked:

Over the next few years, the sector stands to lose $10 to 19 billion in revenue from the loss of international students.

They continued:

Each six monthly intake missed due to the closed international border will deliver an economic blow equivalent to when Australia lost its entire car manufacturing industry.

There are 247,000 Australian jobs that rely on international education. Indeed, there are more workers than there are in the entire mining and agriculture sectors employed as a result of international education.

As a result of the government's inaction, there are 21,000 jobs in the university sector facing the chop—that's full-time equivalent, by the way; it actually affects about 30,000 people and families—including enormous numbers of research jobs. And there are even more in the real economy: student accommodation providers, shops, restaurants, and so on. Tourism is important too. Tourism is actually our fifth-biggest export sector. Sixty per cent of people who visit Australia are international students and even more, on top, are visiting friends, family, and relatives.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 19:09 to 19:17

And then of course there's the impact on research. Thousands of jobs are facing the chop in the next few months if the government doesn't do something to fill the multibillion dollar funding gap that universities are going to be left with. This research is critical to our economic recovery. It's not just the jobs; it's also the economic impact.

International education is a wonderful thing for our communities, our cities and our regions. Many hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the world choose to come and spend some of their formative years in our country and our society. It's been said that more than 2.5 million people have been educated in Australian institutions over the decades, including many who go back to countries right across Asia and rise to the very top of those societies, in government, business, the military and so on. The soft power it creates for a country is so important. Despite all of these benefits, despite the critical importance of this sector—the sector that funds the capital in universities, that funds the research—weeks and months now have gone by with no action from the government. Nothing. Nada. Crickets. Ministers Tudge and Tehan have been revealed as impotent: they can't get anything up in cabinet. They've taken multiple subs there that, we understand, get bounced, because the Prime Minister and Treasurer are hostile to this sector.

Last Friday I heard, on the grapevine, gossip about the minister's Global Reputation Taskforce that he set up for 12 months in response to the bushfires—because we had to do something to repair this image around the world that Australia was on fire and you couldn't come and study here!—and that is now giving them advice on COVID. The minister's so sick of being berated for not having delivered anything, they're now cancelling the task force. The next meeting's going to be its last. It was going to be here for 12 months, but it's gone. They're embarrassed, frustrated, after months saying, 'Trust us, we'll do something.'

This failure to act is inexcusable. Billions of dollars have been thrown at sectors—aviation, tourism, agriculture. Far less investment is needed to save international education, far less. The JobKeeper and jobseeker payments are not available to universities at all. We debated that elsewhere. And Scott Morrison has to put more effort into saving these jobs. It should have happened months ago. We need better care for our students who are currently onshore. Students in Australia are anxious. They're isolated. Many are missing face-to-face study. There's no family support. They've lost casual work income. There are queues in my electorate. I've actually been doing certificates for businesses that are feeding them for free.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 19:20 to 19:27