Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia certainly needs a sensible and practical approach to international education. However, I'm greatly concerned by the government's narrative, characterising this bill, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, as a response to the shonks and crooks in the sector. There are over 1,400 private education and VET providers, many of which are actually high-quality providers. The Labor government itself is far more responsible than these high-quality providers for the majority of the international educational challenges. It is an indictment on the Labor government during a cost-of-living crisis here in Australia—a cost-of-living and inflation crisis caused directly by Labor's $315 billion excessive increase in spending that has driven up the cost of everything, including mortgages, housing, rent and accommodation. At a time of critical housing shortages, Labor has made this situation so much worse by simply opening the floodgates to record numbers and levels of international students. Labor has actually doubled the number of foreign students studying in Australia, from 336,845 in March 2022 to 713,144 in February 2024. There's no doubt that this has created a mess entirely of Labor's own making.

Even worse for me as a regional MP is that, at the same time as Labor has allowed record numbers of international students into major city universities, what was confirmed at recent Senate inquiry hearings was that regional and smaller universities and private education providers have had their student visa approvals reduced by 73,000 this year. That I see as discriminatory against the regional universities. Once again, as we see in so many of Labor's policies, the regions are bearing the brunt of Labor's discrimination. It's all about those inner-city elites and the big end of town for Labor.

Just compare the numbers: at the University of Sydney almost half of all students enrolled in semester 1 this year were the 32,800 international students who were granted visas. Keep in mind that the University of Sydney already receives the majority of taxpayer funding of all our universities, around $1 billion every year. Actually, it's 47 per cent of federal taxpayer university funding. Considering the social licence with the Australian people needed to keep supporting higher education, this is the same university that facilitated antisemitic hate, incitement and vilification on its campus, where the UK proscribed extremist terrorist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir infiltrated the pro-Palestinian camp on the university campus itself. This is the same university that gave the Muslim Students Association a dedicated seat on the university's working group with access to defence and security related industries and research. Last week, hundreds of students voted to support anti-Israel motions, including support for a single Palestine state, from the river to the sea, effectively supporting the destruction of Israel and its people. Appalling, disgusting, and discriminatory treatment of students that did not support the motion is what we saw. How on earth can Jewish students and staff be safe on the University of Sydney campus?

The shadow minister was entirely correct when she said freedom of speech and academic freedom are vitally important, but this does not include the right to trample on the rights of others. Equally, I expect all research and business entities, particularly those engaged in AUKUS or other defence related industries, to reconsider their involvement with the University of Sydney as a result.

All of these instances bring into question the social licence compact the university has with the Australian people and Australian taxpayers. This is the university that the government granted 32,800 international student visas to at the same time regional and smaller universities and private education providers have had their student visa approvals slashed by about 73,000 this year alone. In fact Australia's most prestigious universities have had a 16 per cent increase in their number of foreign students. Not only has this affected our regional universities; what this does very directly is decrease the accommodation and rental properties available, particularly for our regional students who have no choice but to study at city universities. The reason for this is that the courses are not available. Either there are no universities in their region or the courses they need to study, such as medicine, law, pharmacy or engineering, are not available at those regional universities.

But the knock-on effect in a practical sense of Labor's doubling of overseas student numbers is that our regional students not only have to compete for the accommodation. I talk to these families all of the time. Often it's totally unaffordable accommodation, if they can find it. They also have to compete for the jobs they desperately need to help support themselves when they have to live in the city and away from their homes and families. Many of our regional students cannot and do not receive youth allowance or any other form of government support to help with the ever-increasing accommodation and other costs they've had to bear by having to live away from home and with the significant inflation issues.

I strongly believe these same city based universities need to do far more in supporting our regional and remote students. I've looked at the reporting of numbers of regional and remote students in various city based university annual reports. Statistics were provided for international students—onshore, offshore—and research training programs, but there were no statistics on the numbers of regional and remote students. In one I read, the international student experience was detailed but not the regional and remote student experience. Why on earth not? Every university should be not only providing this information but actively targeting and supporting the enrolment of these Australian students from our regions.

I read in the Universities Accord document that regional and remote students make up only 11 per cent of the Group of Eight university cohorts. Our students in the regions deserve to have a higher education. Surely this, in great part, is why our universities receive federal taxpayer funding—to actually educate Australians, our domestic students and those who come from regional and remote Australia, who find it so hard to even get to university.

I hope these same institutions respect the fact that our students come from regional Australia, where the majority of the wealth this nation is actually produced. The contributions to the economy from resources, mining and agriculture underpin Australia's economy and, in large part, pay for the education, health, infrastructure and general government services that we all rely on. Our students from regional areas absolutely deserve a fair go from our higher education system.

Another problem with Labor's record number of general immigration—it's almost a million people Labor have brought into Australia—is the really serious shortage of broader housing across the board. It's not just a housing shortage; it's actually a housing crisis. I see and hear about it every day in my electorate of Forrest, in the south-west of WA. That nearly one million extra people is adding massive pressure, as I said, on health, education, transport and other infrastructure and services.

All of this may suit the government's political agenda, but it actually puts at risk the social licence that's needed from the Australian people—the social licence that ensures ongoing public support not only for the international student business model but also for our skilled migration program. Part of this social licence is based on ensuring that the students who are accepted are genuinely students, not those people who are simply using the student visa system and process for an entirely different reason.

It actually concerns me greatly that there has been a threefold increase in the number of international students who have come to Australia on a student visa but, once here, have sought asylum. That these numbers have increased threefold should be of major concern for the government. These people are clearly coming to Australia under false pretences and, once here, are using our courts and our systems to seek and claim asylum. I note, added to this, that Chinese students not only are having their visas granted at the highest level but also are the top nationality making asylum claims once they're here in Australia.

Unfortunately, overall, Labor has misled Australians by claiming that the number of migrants will actually go down. However, actual figures, not projected figures, show an increase in these numbers, and the government certainly needs to take this issue seriously. There is no doubt, as the Reserve Bank has acknowledged, that Labor's massive additional $315 billion in additional spending is not only driving inflation but keeping the basic costs of living for Australians much higher for longer. Hardworking Australians struggling to make ends meet are having to deal with the cost of housing being up by 14 per cent. I see that recent ABS figures and statistics show that the average Australian mortgage increased by $56,000 last financial year.

In my home state of Western Australia, average mortgages are at a record high, increasing by 20 per cent to $100,000 over those 12 months. South Australia and Queensland have seen similar increases. In general, these same mortgage holders, who are paying at least an extra $1,000 every week, are seeing their basic costs of living increasing as well. When you consider that for a rural and regional family trying to send their young people to a city university because they have no choice, this not only adds to the cost for their family and the cost of living but reduces the ability of that family to be able to send their kids to a university. The cost of education is up 10.9 per cent, and it's actually even more for regional students having to study at a city university. Food is up 11.4 per cent, and electricity is up 21.5 per cent. Insurances are going through the roof.

With this legislation, the minister will set caps on the number of international students who can study in Australia at any one time, but we haven't had any details on how the minister will actually apply these caps in this legislation. We do know that the caps will come into force on 1 January, and there have been widespread concerns raised about these bills. On that basis, I conclude my remarks.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians understand the importance and power of education. We value it and what it can do to open the doors of opportunities for Australians and for friends overseas. The power of education is that it changes lives, so we invest in it. You can see evidence of that in this year's budget, as we not only lift the education standards of Australians but export our world-class education to the world. Education is a big export—the biggest one that we don't dig out of the ground. It's our fourth largest export overall. In the last decade, we have helped to educate more than three million people from around the world. It's a $48 billion industry.

Our education sector doesn't just make us money; it also makes us friends. When a student comes to Australia to study they don't just get an education; a bit of Australia rubs off on them. They fall in love with the place, and when they go home they take that love and affection for us and that connectivity back home with them. They use the knowledge and qualifications they've gained in Australia to become leaders, scientists, teachers and entrepreneurs in our neighbouring countries. That makes this no ordinary export industry, because it's so important to our economy while students are here and also when they return home. It's important to Australia, and it's important to the people in my electorate of Darwin and Palmerston as well as other regional areas of Australia. It's particularly important because we want more, not fewer, international students. This bill matters because it ensures the integrity and quality of the overall system underpinning that social licence, and it provides long-term certainty for the sector and sustainable growth over time.

The pandemic kneecapped international education. Of course, it didn't help that the former government—those opposite—told students to go home, so of course they did. Almost overnight an industry worth $40 billion was effectively halved to $22 billion. The students are now back, but unfortunately so are the shonks and crooks looking to take advantage of students and make a quick buck at the expense of this critical national asset. These unscrupulous actors are a threat to our good name as a place where the best and brightest from around the world can come and get the best education in the world.

Since we were elected a little over two years ago we've been working hard on this. In September 2022, we announced the Parkinson review of the migration system, and, in January 2023, we announced the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, also known as the Nixon review. These reviews brought urgent attention to integrity issues in international education.

We moved quickly on the recommendations of those reviews. In July last year, we got rid of unlimited work rights for international students by reintroducing a working hours cap of 24 hours per week. This allows students to support themselves but not at the expense of their studies, and it was a first step in reducing the lure of getting a student visa as a backdoor entry to work in Australia. In August last year, Minister Jason Clare, the member for Blaxland, closed the concurrent enrolment loophole that allowed agents and providers to shift international students who had been here for less than six months from one course to a cheaper one and from genuine study to no study at all—another backdoor way just to work here. In October last year, we boosted the capacity of the VET regulator ASQA through a $38 million investment and established an integrity unit. The same month we increased the amount of savings an international student now requires to get a student visa from $24,000 to almost $30,000. In March of this year, we increased the English language requirements for students, introduced a new genuine student requirement and increased the number of no-further-stay conditions on certain cohorts of visa students.

I want to emphasise that many of these measures are in response not only to the Parkinson and Nixon reviews but to feedback directly from the sector, because they know that dodgy education agents and providers create problems for the whole industry and they are a threat to the reputations of the universities and providers who are doing the right thing. It's very important that this important part of our economy maintains its social licence to operate.

Not only are the students back; they're back faster than anyone had expected here and in other countries. At the Universities Australia gala dinner in February last year, Minister Clare spoke about how the trajectory of the total number of international students enrolled in our universities wouldn't get back to pre-pandemic levels until the end of 2025. Well, they are back already, and that's a vote of confidence in our institutions, in our providers and in Australia as a place where the best and brightest come to study. But it's also something we need to manage carefully and protect from the bad actors that I mentioned, and that's what this bill does.

This legislation does a number of things to bolster the social licence as we manage the international education industry in a way that delivers the greatest benefit to Australia whilst maintaining the social licence that the Australian people provide to any Australian government. We will continue to use a responsible approach in setting enrolment limits, for example, that are appropriate. The Minister for Education will take into account the relevance of courses to Australia's skill needs, of course, and he is working through this in a very diligent and commonsense way.

It was fantastic to have Minister Clare in Darwin, and he visited some remote communities recently. He not only visited our university, Charles Darwin University; he visited schools, met with parents and talked with teachers and, of course, the students—the university students and other higher education students of the future. At the Australian International Education Conference in October last year, he said that the government wanted to work with the international education industry to make sure we get these reforms right. It was fantastic, as I said, to have him in Darwin recently.

We've done a number of consultations with the sector about the implementation of the powers set out in this bill. There has been broad and continued engagement with the Council for International Education and, of course, with stakeholders in the sector, including the Group of Eight and many others, such as regional universities like Charles Darwin University in my electorate. I note that the Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, Paul Henderson, has said that the Northern Territory faces a unique operating context, and it certainly does. The Vice-Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, Professor Scott Bowman, said:

International students bring a vibrancy to Darwin; are warmly welcomed into the community; and help fill skills gaps while studying and upon graduation. In the context of dire skills shortages, and lower than national average rental vacancies, the social licence for international education in the NT is distinct from that in major metropolitan cities.

That's something that I know honourable members representing regional electorates with universities will relate to. These consultations have been taking place for some time and will continue until the start date, 1 January 2025.

One thing that the framework makes clear is that international education is not a one-way street. In the last couple of years, we've made great strides in taking Australian education overseas, teaching in international branch campuses where students can get the benefit of an Australian education without having to leave home. We are a global leader in terms of international education and the education we provide to our own citizens. When it comes to the caps on enrolments, I know from speaking to the minister that we will be taking into account the vital role that international education plays in regional areas of Australia, such as with Charles Darwin University in my electorate. We will get the balance right.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition will not be opposing the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, but I do suggest that the government support the very reasonable and thought-out amendment put forward by the member for Bradfield. I agree with the member for Solomon when he talks about how important international education is to regional universities and regional communities per se.

Recently I have been on a fact-finding tour—an inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors, particularly post COVID, appreciating the fact that we are not out of the woods when it comes to COVID-19 by any stretch of the imagination. People are still being afflicted with COVID and passing away from COVID, but the conditions have changed. The economy is back open. This inquiry has looked into how the situation is being handled with Australia's tourism and tertiary education factors and sectors in mind. I participated with the chair, Labor's Senator Deb O'Neill from New South Wales, in hearings in Sydney, the Gold Coast, Orange, Cairns, Broome, Fremantle, Great Ocean Road, Ballarat and Adelaide. They were very good hearings, and I commend those who gave evidence to those hearings, particularly the hearing on 2 March last year in Sydney.

I just want to place on the record what was said by students who would know because they are experiencing it firsthand. Inuli Subasinghe, who studies at UNSW, told the inquiry:

The cost of rent has been at an all-time high recently and, with a lot more international students coming into the country, it has been difficult for students to find accommodation. A lot of students are paying insanely high prices right now; they are only staying in a place for three months and then have to move again. So it has been difficult. For university courses we pay a really high amount, but I do not think we get the support that we need for the courses.

She was very frank and very raw. I thank her for her honesty. They are sentiments which are being echoed right throughout the university sector not just by visiting students but by many students who are Australians who reside in this country.

Katja Strehle, a fourth-year PhD student in sociology from Western Sydney University, backed up those comments. I really liked what she said. She said:

I personally, for example, would like to give back to the community, because there has been a lot of economic investment in me and my research. I would not like to just leave Australia without giving back.

I think those sentiments are admirable. I think they are reflected in many students who come to Australia to learn. They do want to contribute. They do, as Katja has said, want to give back. I thank the students who gave evidence at that inquiry for being so upfront.

The inquiry heard some alarming reports about the unavailability and the lack of accommodation both in capital cities and in regional areas. When I discussed this bill with the government relations officer at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga, Samantha Beresford, she was concerned, as she has a right to be. We want our universities—and, from my own point of view, our regional universities—to be the best they can be.

I am concerned that this Labor federal government has mismanaged Australia's immigration system. It has led to more than double the number of international students in Australia, from 336,845 in March 2022, a couple of months prior to the election of the Albanese government, to a peak of 713,144 in February 2024. These are figures from six months ago. Goodness knows what they are now. Under Labor, there are 80,000 student visa holders who are on to their third student visa or more. Some are on an eighth, ninth or 10th student visa, as a backdoor way to stay in Australia to work. I'm sure the member for Barker would agree with me, coming from a regional area, that there are so many job vacancies in regional Australia at the moment, not just in agriculture but in all areas of endeavour, blue collar and white collar, that cannot be filled. And, yes, our international students and our residential students are filling the void, in many cases. But the accommodation crisis is real. It's hurting regional communities, particularly regional communities where there are universities.

We know that education is one of the big pillars that provides generous benefits to our balance of payments. If we're inviting students to our country, we need to be able to accommodate those students properly. The government's failure to manage Australia's international education sector with requisite certainty and fairness—and I have to say that this came out from some of the students who gave evidence at that inquiry—is causing economic harm to Australian universities, private higher education providers, English language course providers and the vocation, education and training or VET sector. The member for Bruce made some comments about this, and I don't disagree with them as far as some providers abusing the privilege of having international students. I'll leave that for another day. I listened to the member for Solomon when he talked about rejigging the English test and other parameters. Could you just imagine what those opposite would have said had we done the same in government? There would have been cries of discrimination and cries of, 'What are you doing to our education sector?' But we don't hear any of that now.

We won't be opposing this legislation, but the government's narrative in the remarkable growth in the international student numbers—on its watch, mind you—has been driven by the Minister for Education describing it as 'shonks and crooks'. That's what he contended in his second reading speech to this bill. Like the member for Bruce and, to a degree, the education minister, the member for Blaxland, I know that some international students have been lured here by providers just trying to make a fast buck and have used the various visa schemes to do just that. However, visa arrangements under this government are out of control.

Interestingly, in the Howard years, overall, not just in education, there were about 100,000 people migrating to Australia. That number was exceeded this January and February, in those individual months alone. There were more people who came to Australia in January and February than there were in the entire year in the Howard era. Eventually, we're going to have to say, 'Enough'; we're going to have to draw a line. This Labor government doesn't seem to have the capacity to do that.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill introduces:

… new ministerial powers for the Minister for Education to set caps on the number of international students who can study in Australia at any one time—not just for each educational institution but for each campus location and course.

A bit has been said about the regions. The Regional Universities Network, or RUN, is a national collaborative group of seven regional Australian universities: Charles Sturt University, CQUniversity Australia, Federation University Australia, Southern Cross University, the University of New England, the University of Southern Queensland and the University of the Sunshine Coast. It's really interesting to hear what RUN has had to say about this bill. The group has actually said it:

… tends to leave the social missions of RUN universities more exposed to unintended consequences. It is RUN's concern that the universities most likely impacted by the changes introduced … will be those regionally-based institutions who not only host the sector's highest concentrations of domestic equity enrolments, but whose ongoing viability in regional areas is directly linked to international enrolments at both regional and metropolitan campuses.

RUN universities have witnessed the highest proportional declines in international student revenue since COVID, the largest reduction in international student enrolments, the slowest post-COVID recovery in international students, and are among the least able public institutions to absorb any further reductions in international student revenue.

That's what RUN says.

It continues:

RUN universities enrol just 4 per cent of all international students studying at Australian universities …

I accept that, but they are still an important component of those regional campuses. They further state:

Between 2019 to 2022, RUN universities saw a 61 per cent reduction in international student revenue linked to the pandemic, compared to the sector average of just a 16 per cent reduction during the same period.

They're hurting, and they say:

However, this must be supported by a visa regime that positively discriminates towards regional study/settlement, to assist the growth of international students at regional campuses.

They say:

RUN believes there should be no capped impediment, by location, provider, or course—for international students enrolling at regional universities.

I would contend that this government doesn't really have an ear to what's important in regional communities, and you see that right across the spectrum. You see that right across the board, and it wouldn't matter whether it's transport or agriculture. It doesn't matter that it's education in this instance.

It was regional areas which, like most times, kept this nation going during COVID, when many city folk were pulling up the doona over their heads and feeling sorry for themselves because we had a global pandemic. It was our farmers and our miners who were getting out and helping to put food and fibre on tables and backs, who were helping dig things up out of the ground to help our exports and who kept this country going. When you get legislation with the city-centric nonsense that we so often hear spouted by members opposite in legislation and interviews and all the rest, it makes it hard to stomach. It truly does. I can see the member for Barker nodding because he knows exactly that what I am saying is true.

Again, RUN says:

The new student accommodation requirements of the proposed managed growth policy, if applied to regional higher education providers, would also place disproportionate burdens upon regional universities and regional communities.

Firstly, regional universities have less financial capacity and/or borrowing capacity to take on major capital expenditure projects, compared to metropolitan universities who can leverage robust balance sheets derived from scaled operations in dense urban markets.

Secondly, the costs of construction, maintenance, equipment, and supply chains are higher in regional Australia.

They ought not be, but they are. That's why I commend the amendments to this bill that have been put forward by the member for Bradfield. We need to make sure that our regional universities are as strong as can be.

David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. The Australian government is committed to lifting the quality and assuring the integrity of our international education sector. This legislation continues this critical work. Australia is known globally for its high-quality tertiary education, with well-respected institutions conducting vital research and offering students opportunities and experiences that they cannot get in their home countries.

You don't have to look far from this building to see evidence of this. Across the lake, Australia's national university continues to provide world-class education and world-leading research. Further west, the University of Canberra punches above its weight in global rankings despite its relative youth as an institution. And the Australian Catholic University and the incoming University of New South Wales Reid campus will provide students with plenty of opportunities to study what they want to and to gain the skills they need to succeed. Down the road, in my electorate of Bean, the new CIT campus in Woden will offer a variety of courses and encourage more students to consider vocational education as an equal to university, not an alternative. An EV Centre of Excellence has been established in Fyshwick as well. It's easy to see why over 15,000 international students from more than 100 countries come here to study—and that's just in the ACT.

Overseas students contribute $30 billion to the Australian economy per annum, and international education is Australia's fourth-largest export. The number of international student enrolments in the year to March has increased from 246,000 in 2005 to 741,000 in 2024. As other contributors to this debate have noted, the pandemic crippled international education. The former government told students to go home, and they did. Almost overnight, a multibillion-dollar industry was effectively halved. Those students are now back, but so are the dodgy operators, looking to take advantage of students and make a quick dollar at the expense of this critical national asset. They are unscrupulous actors who are a threat to our good name as a place where the best and brightest from around the world can come and get the best education in the world.

Since coming to government we have been working on this. The release of the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, or the Nixon review, and the review of the migration system brought urgent attention to integrity issues in international education. In September 2022 we announced the Parkinson review of the migration system, which found that the migration system creates incentives for non-genuine students and unscrupulous profit-seeking education providers. That profit motive means that some institutions prioritise enrolment numbers over learning outcomes or that student visas are sold as a way to work in Australia. Additionally, the review found clear evidence of systemic exploitation and the risk of an emerging permanently temporary underclass, including both overseas students and graduates.

In January 2023 the Nixon Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System revealed further weaknesses and failures. The review found systemic integrity issues within the international education sector, including collusive and unscrupulous business practices between education providers, their agents and non-genuine students. Additionally, the 2023 interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into international education, titled Quality and integrity: the quest for sustainable growth, found instances of active collusion between non-genuine students, agents and education providers, as well as instances of education agents directing genuine students to take up unsuitable courses that are profitable for the agent in terms of commissions and provider end recruitment numbers. The report also noted that providers were facing difficulty managing agents because the student recruitment market was hypercompetitive and that providers, sometimes in collusion with agents, were enrolling non-genuine students in courses that they did not attend and offering courses to overseas students only, which may be of poor quality.

These reviews did bring urgent attention to integrity issues in the international education sector, and this government moved quickly on the recommendations of those reviews. In July last year the Albanese government got rid of unlimited work rights for international students by reintroducing a working hours cap of 24 hours per week. This allowed students to support themselves but not at the expense of their studies. It was the first step in reducing the lure of getting a student visa as a backdoor to working here.

In August last year the Minister for Education closed the concurrent enrolment loophole that allowed agents and providers to shift international students who had been here for less than six months from one course to another—a cheaper one—and from genuine study to no study at all. It was another backdoor way to work here.

In October last year we boosted the capacity of the VET regulator, ASQA, through a $38 million investment and the establishment of an integrity unit. That very same month this government increased the amount of savings that international students are now required to have to get a student visa from $24,505 to $29,710.

In March of this year we increased the English language requirement for students, introduced a new genuine student requirement and increased the number of no-further-stay conditions for certain cohorts of visa students. Many of these measures are in response to not only the Parkinson and Nixon reviews but to feedback from the sector. The higher education sector knows that these operators exist and that they are a real threat to quality and integrity. Stakeholders have told the government that we need to respond in stronger terms, and this legislation will do that.

The bill is comprised of one schedule with eight parts. Parts 1 and 2 introduce new considerations for education services for overseas students, or ESOS agencies, in determining whether a provider is fit and proper, such as if they control or own, or are controlled or owned by, an education agent or associate. The provisions in part 1 will also require providers to give information about education agent commissions upon request from the Secretary of the Department of Education, who, in turn, will have the power to give information to providers on student transfers by, and commissions made to, specific education agents.

Part 3 will provide the Minister for Education with the power to determine, via legislative instruments, how initial applications for the registration of providers and for registration of courses by registered providers are to be managed by ESOS agencies. It also allows the minister to pause the registration of new providers and new courses by registered providers.

Part 4 will require providers to deliver one or more courses exclusively to domestic students for two consecutive years to be eligible to apply for registration under the ESOS Act. Providers that are listed in table A of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and providers that are seeking registration as standalone English language intensive courses for overseas students or standalone foundation programs will be exempt from the new registration requirement.

Part 5 will enable the automatic cancellation of a provider's registration under the ESOS Act where a course has not been delivered to overseas students in a period of 12 consecutive months. Part 6 provides for the automatic suspension of a provider's registration when an ESOS agency or designated state authority determines that a provider does not meet the fit and proper test because it is under investigation for a specified offence.

Parts 7 and 8 introduce new ministerial powers to regulate the provision of education to overseas students. They include allowing the minister, via legislative instrument and with the agreement of the minister responsible for vocational education and training, to: (1) limit the enrolments of overseas students by provider, course or location over a year; and (2) automatically suspend and cancel specified courses on the basis of systemic issues, their value to Australia's skills and training needs and priorities or if it's in the public interest.

This legislation is about restoring quality and integrity to the education services that overseas students come to Australia for, and it will support management of the sector for sustainable growth over time. The bill will support this by empowering the minister to determine limits on overseas student enrolments at a class, or classes of registered providers, for one or more years or on overseas student enrolments in individual courses, or classes of courses, at the provider. In addition, the bill allows the minister to give separate notice to individual providers to enable unique enrolment limits. The limit can be expressed as a specific number or worked out in accordance with the specified method.

The minister has the flexibility to exclude courses or providers from limits. The bill also enables the automatic suspension and cancellation of courses that the minister is satisfied have systemic quality issues in relation to the standard of delivery or have limited value to Australia's critical skill needs or where it is in the public interest to do so. Following consultation, the final international education and skills strategic framework will outline the government's approach to implementing these limits.

We cannot proudly promote our education sector to the world if it is undermined by poor integrity and poor quality. We cannot have students coming to Australia and being ripped off, and we cannot have operators in the shadows whose business model is based on providing low-quality courses at sandstone university prices trying to profit off the name and brand recognition of this high-quality sector.

We are a government focused on welcoming the world's students to share in and experience the Australian quality of education that is internationally recognised, but it must be sustainable so that education providers that are committed to investing the time and resources to provide students with a genuine education are not undermined by scammers trying to get rich quick and take advantage of vulnerable students coming to Australia under the banner of providing an 'Australian education'.

Under this Albanese Labor government and the work of this Minister for Education, we are restoring quality and integrity while ensuring that an Australian tertiary education remains synonymous with high quality and good value and continues to be one of our nation's most valuable exports. The important measures in this bill are the next steps in strengthening our international education sector, shutting out the dodgy operators, giving our providers long-term certainty, whether they're in the bush or in the city, and setting this national asset up for future success. I commend this bill to the House.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We welcome the changes introduced in the bill to reduce exploitation of international students and weed out non-genuine education providers and agents. Nevertheless, the introduction of international student caps and broad ministerial powers to interfere in the tertiary education sector is something the Greens cannot support. The government is attempting to write extraordinary powers for itself into legislation, allowing the education minister to set limits on uni enrolments down to specific providers, courses or locations. This is an extraordinarily heavy-handed approach.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 demonstrates unprecedented government intervention in the university sector, and that has the possibility of government simply using the legislation to take aim at providers or courses that it does not like. There are no safeguard mechanisms in the bill, no avenues for providers to review decisions and no guidance on how the minister will be guided—or in what way—in making the legislative instruments that are possible under these expansive powers. Capping international student numbers is shockingly bad policy. It meddles with the independence of higher education institutions and totally disregards the needs, welfare and interests of international students.

International students play a vital role in this country, and this bill sends a message that they are no longer welcome here. Attempting to silo international students into particular degrees or locations will not improve their uptake. It means international students will simply look elsewhere. Students should be able to choose what they study and where they study; it is not for the government to decide.

Lots of the talk around the international student caps, though, has stemmed from one of the more disgraceful bits of rhetoric that goes on in this place—conflating migration with the housing crisis. International students far too often are demonised, targeted and singled out as somehow a cause or a contributor to the housing crisis, with very little—essentially no—evidence to back that up. We know that, for instance, since COVID there has been a net increase in migrant households in this country of 375,000 migrant households. At the same time, the Australian private housing sector has built over 600,000 homes—almost double the rate of new migrant households in this country, which includes international students. In that same time period, the group that has purchased the most homes that have been built in this country are property investors. In that same period property investors purchased just under 600,000 homes.

Far too often in the middle of cost-of-living and housing crises, the rich and powerful and the political establishment will attempt to demonise and single out the weak and defenceless or people who don't have a big voice in this country in an attempt to protect the financial interests that actually cause the housing crisis and benefit from it. It's no coincidence that the Commonwealth Bank can make a record $10 billion profit in 2023, just as mortgage and housing stress is reaching a peak disgraceful limit. It's no coincidence that at the same time as the government wants to avoid responsibility for building enough public housing for people in this country they and the opposition, the Liberals and Nationals, decide to team up to partially blame migrants for this housing crisis. It's no coincidence that as the Property Council, property developers, the banks and property investors want to avoid any responsibility for this housing crisis we hear more and more talk of migrants and see more and more of the singling out and demonising of migrants, whether it be international students or people fleeing wars and conflict and coming to this country for a safe haven.

What we know about that sort of rhetoric is that it is designed to distract from the real causes of this housing crisis, whether it be the fact that the government chronically underinvests in public housing, whether it be that over the next 10 years property investors will pocket $165 billion in tax handouts from this government, whether it's the fact that neither a federal nor any state or territory government outside of the ACT—where the Greens are in government—will even contemplate capping rent increases.

There are a variety of causes of this housing crisis, but one of them isn't international students or migrants. The more that they are targeted, the more likely it is that the rich and powerful and the real culprits of this housing crisis will be able to get away with continuing to profit from the housing crisis they have caused while they get to turn around and single out migrants and international students as the culprits when they've had nothing to do with it.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise today to support the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. By way of introduction, there have been so many comments in this place over recent days, and rightly so, about how Australia was fourth on the medal tally at the Olympics and how we punched so high above our weight. Indeed, that's a common refrain in Australia, when it comes to sport, and I think it's something that all of us in this place celebrate, including myself. I was glued to the TV at some very unhealthy hours over the last fortnight.

Today we're talking about another area where Australia punches well above its weight, which is international education and research. These are critically important to our economy and our society, and we should celebrate them. What this bill today recognises is that we can only celebrate it if education is undertaken in a way where it's properly regulated and undertaken with integrity.

I'll start with a couple of statistics. Though statistics can be rather sterile, it's important to provide some context in that the international education sector in Australia is so massive. In 2022-23 the sector contributed over $35 billion to the economy. As previous speakers have indicated, it was the fourth largest export earner. There were many significant components to that, including higher education at over $24 billion and the VET sector at $8½ billion. Coming from Victoria, I know how important this is. For many years, education exports—the international education sector—have been Victoria's largest services export. When you look at the international ranking of countries with international students studying in them we're routinely in the top five. Depending on the measure that you use, Australia is sometimes ranked even higher than that. These are huge numbers, and they don't just represent dollars of exports. For me, they also represent something more substantial around the numbers of people being trained to support the vitality of our economy.

But, of course, there's also the human side to this. I raise that because I feel as though I have experienced almost every dimension of the international student experience. I was an international student 25-odd years ago over in the US, and I spent a number of years doing that. I was in a class where 21 of 28 students were foreign, and it wasn't always easy to navigate the system as a foreign student, particularly, of course for those with language issues or cultural issues. But those 21 students out of that cohort of 28 added a great deal of vitality. That brought together people from all around the world who then studied and researched with each other and added greatly not just to each other's experience but to each other's education and to the final outcome. Indeed, that strengthened the institution which we were studying in.

Before that, I'd studied a master's at the University of Sydney where half of my class was foreign. Roughly 10 out of the 20 master's students were foreign students. There I didn't just see the interaction between foreign students and domestic students; I got to see how the foreign students who graduated from that class went on to contribute, in many cases, to Australia. Some of those foreign students who completed the master's went back to their home countries or, indeed, went to other countries, but many of them stayed in Australia. Some went on to undertake PhDs in Australia. Some went on to work in Australia. Some went on to become permanent residents. Some went on to work for Australian institutions such as the Treasury, ASIC and the Reserve Bank. So I saw directly how these people added greatly to our economy and to our society.

Finally, I taught international students when I was at Monash University. I taught a number of undergraduate foreign students. I taught PhD students macroeconomics. Again, I saw the challenges they often had in navigating the system and navigating society, but then I saw them grow. I saw them complete their qualifications. As with my master's class, some of them went home, but many of them stayed in Australia. Some of them are still teaching at Monash to this day, and now they're teaching the next generation of students. They're undertaking research. They're contributing.

So I've seen how much foreign students can create and contribute. If we think about all the different ways that foreign students add, there's the creation of skills that are dedicated after the completion of the degree, both here and abroad. There are the personal connections, of course. The massive alumni network that has been generated over decades of people who have studied here and then either stayed or gone overseas has created an incredible asset for Australia—not an asset that is measured in dollars and cents but something very valuable and important.

There is also the research, of course, and research is an area that, as I have seen, has benefited greatly from a diverse range of skills, backgrounds and perspectives. I believe Australian research is all the better for having not just those foreign students who graduate and continue researching here but all of those connections that undoubtedly continue for many years after those students study here. Then, of course, there are all the financial benefits: the export dollars but also, of course, the fact that so many people who complete these degrees then fill skills gaps in Australia and contribute in those ways.

So there are so many benefits. But, of course, you get the benefits of that system not through volume but through the quality of the interaction, the quality of the training, the quality of the education, the quality of the skills that people come out with and the quality of the research. For that to be the focus, you need to have a system that is built on integrity.

There have been a number of reviews into this sector. The Nixon review is one of the more recent reviews. It found systemic integrity issues within the international education sector, including collusive and unscrupulous business practices between education providers, their agents and non-genuine students. That involves agents and sometimes providers ripping off students. Sometimes, perhaps, students are coming here without any intention to study. It can be all sorts of different situations. But what was most pertinent out of the Nixon review was that there was something systemic at play—not everywhere, of course, because I think the vast majority of the sector has high integrity and adds a great deal to our education system, to our research and to our society, but it did find that there were systemic integrity issues that needed to be addressed. In relation to the VET sector, the Nixon review looked at recent operations and investigations that had exposed the fact that non-genuine providers were colluding with disreputable agents to facilitate student visas. It's in that context that we need to strengthen the system, and that's why the bill that has been brought forward is so important. The international education sector is adding greatly to our economy, greatly to our education system and greatly to our society, but we need to make sure that we strengthen it, and we need to make sure that it continues to do so.

One of the key elements in this bill is that the bill will strengthen the fit-and-proper-provider test applied to providers to limit cross-ownership and collusive behaviours behind providers and education agents. As I just mentioned, that was an issue which had been identified by the Nixon review. It had also been identified by other reviews, including reviews of the parliament. So that's a very important step that this bill will put into place.

There are also a number of measures in relation to agents. One is that the Secretary of the Department of Education will be given the power to collect education agent commission information. This is critical because we know that effective regulation relies upon effective data. It is not possible, in almost all cases, to effectively regulate a sector if you don't have clear visibility of what's going on. There will also be an expansion of the ability of the Secretary of the Department of Education or the relevant regulator to provide information to registered providers about education agents. That's another critical element of not just collecting critically important information and data but making sure that it goes to those members of the education ecosystem that need it in order to protect student interests and protect the overall integrity of the scheme. It will also permit the Minister for Education to direct, via legislative instrument, how ESOS agencies manage initial applications for the registration of providers and applications for the registration of courses by registered providers by directing the suspension of lodgement or processing of applications and/or that an ESOS agency is not required or is not permitted to process existing applications for a period of up to 12 months. So those three elements of this bill all go to the way in which the role of agents will be regulated more effectively.

There are also measures which go to providers. That's the other key element of this system when it comes to student interaction. The bill will require providers to deliver a course to domestic students for two years before applying to register to deliver courses for overseas students, and this is obviously to reflect the fact that we want bona fide courses and that we want courses that have been offered to domestic students for a reasonable period of time. We don't want courses that are set up entirely for foreign students in a way that isn't rigorous and isn't for the right purposes. In a related sense, the bill will allow for the automatic cancellation of a provider's registration where they have not delivered a course to overseas students for 12 consecutive months, so it will require continuity in the provision of services to foreign students.

The bill will also permit the automatic cancellation of a provider's registration where they are deemed not to be fit and proper as a result of being under investigation for serious offences. Of course, this will relate to the very first element that I talked about, which is a strengthening of the fit-and-proper test itself. And it will provide additional powers to the Minister for Education in relation to limiting or cancelling providers' ability to deliver courses that have systemic quality or standard-of-delivery issues and to set limits on enrolments at a provider level. It's critical that the minister has those additional powers in order to ensure integrity of the system.

So we have a raft of integrity measures. Importantly, underpinning this is strengthening the fit-and-proper provider test. But, as I mentioned, there are a series of measures that relate to agents and their role in the system, and it is absolutely critical that the regulation in relation to agents is strengthened, because in so many instances it's possible for vulnerable international students to fall prey to an unscrupulous agent. Then of course it's also critical that providers are subject to stronger regulation. This is going to be achieved through strengthening the framework, through providing additional powers to the secretary of the Department of Education and through providing additional powers to the Minister for Education to act in that central role.

I started with a summary of the significant economic contribution of international education to Australia—the fact that this reflects not just dollars and cents, in terms of exports, but a huge provision of services, training and education to so many thousands of people; that those people gain massively; that our students gain from learning and researching with the international students; and that Australia benefits from so many of those students staying here and researching or working after they've finished. It contributes so much, and I've seen that firsthand. But a system as big and as complex as our international education sector can work only if it's not about volume but about quality. That's why integrity has to be at the heart of the way in which this sector sees services provided to international students and also the way in which the government provides oversight and regulation. So I'm very pleased to support this bill.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I've said publicly, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut—and the wrong walnut. I do not quibble with the integrity measures contained in parts 1 to 6 of this bill. But I would argue that it's compromised by its approach to reducing the number of overseas students and short-term holidaymakers to make a show of doing something about a housing shortage that has little to do with either cohort.

We should welcome overseas students to Australia, as we've been doing since the heyday of the Colombo Plan in the fifties, sixties and seventies. What we should not be doing is encouraging young people to come to Australia on false pretences that the sham or questionable courses being offered to them are really a pathway to residency. It has meant that there are thousands of people now living in Australia in a kind of limbo, with reduced economic opportunities and no real road to citizenship. Visa factories ought to be run out of business, and, to the extent that this bill leads to that result, so much the better.

If rorting were the real concern, this legislation would focus specifically on providers of concern and simply introduce measures to ensure more effective regulation of their practices. Some privately owned VET providers are clearly not of high integrity and quality. They should be the focus, not universities and other quality government providers. Nor should this be an avenue to pit quality institutions against each other or to create a city-country divide.

Once again, we're presented with legislation about two very separate and distinct issues. It's becoming a habit with this government, and a bad one. As the government knows and as the minister has come close to saying publicly, the rest of this legislation, part 7 and 8, is not primarily about education but about fixing the net overseas migration number for the next year and using the tertiary sector to do most of the heavy lifting. There are also TAFEs and other respectable providers that would be adversely affected by these measures, not to mention the impact on Australia's reputation as a reliable provider of quality overseas education and on the ability of universities to support the research we need if we are indeed to be a clean, green superpower.

It was not that long ago that assaults on Indian students in Australia resulted in a sharp downturn in young people from the subcontinent signing up to come here to study. In fact, it took a specific visit by Julia Gillard to India to get under the hood and start the repairs. Reputation is hard won, easily lost and a real battle to regain. Overseas education may indeed be our third-largest overseas earner, but we are not unique. We do not have the field to ourselves. We do not have a monopoly. We are reliant on the cross-subsidisation that international students provide to support domestic students and research.

Already, the tertiary sector tells me, the uncertainty surrounding this legislation is leading to prospective students going to other countries, including the United States. That's not surprising given that Home Affairs is already deliberately slowing down the time it takes to process visas for prospective students. Create uncertainty and people will reconsider their options. By reducing the number of overseas students in this pre-emptory way we will be creating reputational and business risks for the tertiary sector as well as broader problems for an already troubled economy as unintended consequences. International students have played a large role in underpinning economic growth since COVID.

I accept that not every university thinks the same way on this bill. Some, like La Trobe—and I've met with the vice-chancellor—argue they will benefit. But I have also met with vice-chancellors from the University of Melbourne and Monash University, which many Goldstein students attend, and they entirely disagree. I do not want to be involved in creating a situation where students in Goldstein cannot get a place at a university anywhere near where they live because of arbitrary course caps that could be imposed under this legislation.

If there's a perceived temporary issue with the number of people entering the country—and I'm still not convinced this is a way to solve it—make sure the legislation operates for only a temporary period. I have been in discussions with the minister to add a sunset clause to the legislation so it will lapse once it's achieved the government's short-term goals. Unfortunately, it appears the government has ultimately decided not to support my amendment despite support from the tertiary sector and other respectable providers. Yes, the government sympathises with the concept, but it's decided it's just too difficult. That's an inadequate response, especially when the legislation as it stands grants extraordinary powers to the minister to, for example, impose total enrolment limits by legislative instrument and to impose total enrolment limits by notice to the provider. The real sledgehammer comes with additional provisions to allow the minister to impose enrolment limits on individual courses by legislative instrument or by notice to the provider. This is an overreach, and I wholeheartedly support the amendment from my colleague the member for North Sydney to remove that provision.

Meanwhile, I continue to offer a sunset clause of two years to enable the government to get over what it sees as an immediate but one-off problem. It would also give the sector certainty that the extraordinary powers granted to the minister would not be used for even less acceptable reasons by a future incumbent. The government acknowledged to me that it might have been a different story if the Australian tertiary education authority had been up and running. I offered suggestions to address this that were considered but ultimately rejected. I do suspect that, if the minister had been the ultimate decisionmaker, a sunset would have seen the light of day, to mix a metaphor, but he is not and there are other priorities at play at in other offices in this building.

It appears that the proposal to cap the number of international students was thrown into the budget at the last minute to make it appear that the government was doing something about the housing shortage. In his budget address, the Treasurer went so far as to blame international students for putting pressure on the prices of rent and making finding housing harder for everyone. The government has repeatedly shown itself to be willing to bow to the politics of fear propagated by others in this chamber on immigration. Now a housing crisis which has been decades in the making is being tied to international students. I would argue that the housing crisis has multiple causes which are bipartisan and will take decades to repair. This needs to be done in a considered way, and creating another problem in a knee-jerk attempt to solve it is not the way to go. There is a real danger that, in trying to resolve one perceived issue, this legislation, if it remains unamended, would damage the broader economy, especially by reducing the supply of part-time workers at the time of a labour shortage and with inflation remaining uncomfortably strong.

As the Treasurer has pointed out, it is services rather than goods that are driving inflation now. Reducing the supply of labour can only make matters worse, and blaming overseas students for the housing crisis is at best simplistic. As the Property Council has pointed out, between 2019 and 2023 median weekly rent increased by 30 per cent. Over the same period, student visa arrivals decreased by 13 per cent. Reports suggest that overseas students occupy a mere four per cent of rentals. As the Student Accommodation Council puts it:

There are more domestic students in rental homes than international- yet no one is suggesting we ban share-houses for local university students.

The fact is we have simply not been building enough purpose-built student accommodation. The Property Council estimates 7,770 new beds are due to come online by 2026—still not enough to alleviate demand in the private rental market. It's still not quite clear to me how increasing requirements on universities to add to student accommodation works when this legislation will reduce their income and, one would have thought, therefore their ability to borrow to build. On top of that, last financial year, when growth was an anaemic 1.5 per cent, the National Australia Bank estimated that spending by international students was responsible for the 0.8 of the increase—more than half of the total for the year. Growth remains around the same level right now, so any cut in international student numbers is likely to have a further direct impact on growth.

The Group of Eight universities suggests that, if the number of international students were capped at the pre-COVID level of 2019, the immediate impact would cost the economy more than $5 billion and more than 22,000 jobs. In my own city, the estimate is that international students at Monash and Melbourne contribute nearly $6 billion in economic output and the impact would reduce economic output by more than $1 billion and 4½ thousand jobs. I know the universities are talking their own book, but clearly the impact would at least be substantial and damaging.

This bill is a sledgehammer—and not in a good way. I do not support it in its current form.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 and I do so as someone who represents a community where an enormous number of international students have gone through the processes of studying in Australia and now call Australia home as citizens, many of them parents of children, many of them owners of homes in my electorate. I also come to this bill having visited having visited India last year and having spent a lot of time talking to people there about international students in Australia. Obviously, there are a lot of people in my community who want to talk to me about their experience as international students here and their wishes and hopes to have family members or other people from home come and join them here for that.

I have to say that we all know the power of the international education program for the Australian economy, but we must also be able to say, hand on heart, that what we are offering as a country to students from other parts of the world who wish to come here is absolute quality. When you put your hand up to say that you want to come to Australia to study, you do so expecting the Australian education experience, whether that be in the vocational education and training sector or in the higher education sector. I cannot, hand on heart, knowing people who have been educated in Australia through these programs, say that that is the case for everyone, and I would like to be able to do so. I think it is incumbent on everyone in this place to want to be able to say the same.

I want to be able to say that every student from overseas who comes here seeking an education, paying for an Australian education, receives the quality that we expect as parliamentarians and receives training of an international standard and that they're then able to apply for positions globally with an Australian qualification in their hand and have the world say that that's a quality certification that has met international standards. This legislation goes some way to ensuring that that is the case in the future. It goes some way to undoing some of the exploitation of those international students that we have seen in our suburbs and communities. I know firsthand of cases where, tragically, those things have occurred to people who have come here for an education. Similarly, some people can tell us that they came for an education, paid for it, and received less than what we would all like to say was an Australian education. I support the bill.

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

I rise to address the government's Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. The coalition reserve our position in relation to this until we see the Senate inquiry. We want to know a lot more about the impact of the bill. However, after extensive years of experience inside the student system and administering it in the executive for some period of time, I am concerned about many measures that the government is putting forward in relation to this bill.

There is too much arbitrary power for the minister over caps and over the caps on international students that the government's proposing. It is hard to run an international college if you're in the private sector or a university that deals with volumes of student numbers, visa approvals, revenue streams and all of the variables that come with bringing in humans and the fact that people change their minds. Students are no different to any other group of humans. They may well change their minds. It's hard enough without the government arbitrarily setting limits every 12 months, unreasonably by fiat, of whatever the minister feels like. Generally, we have a scepticism that this will be because of the government's mismanagement of the immigration system more broadly, taking it out on the student sector and using the cap to somehow reduce the number of people in the country arbitrarily without any good evidence and with too much ministerial power.

I want to point out that the demonisation of students through COVID is particularly poor from the Labor Party. In the speeches we've heard, they make the same point, 'Oh, you told students to leave.' Well, in 2019, when COVID came about, the government sensibly advised students to return home while we faced a pretty unprecedented worldwide crisis that nobody was certain about. Borders were shutting around the world in some countries, like China. People were being locked into houses and boarded in. It was a very fragile environment. Sending people home during that period was a good choice for that time. Now they want to rail against it and say they would have said, 'Stay in Australia with uncertain prospects of returning to your family and slave away working,' even though most businesses were making them redundant. Therefore, the government would have paid for students to be here doing nothing, not being able to work, not being able to function, and not being able to study.

The faux outrage from members opposite about this issue is actually a complete misappreciation and misunderstanding of basic humanity and the responsibility of a government in a crisis. The government made the right call. It told students to go home, and a lot of students did go home. That wasn't for fun or because the government felt like it; that was an emergency situation. We don't have to go into what that was. I'm sure all members understand and accept the basic premises. It was a one-off event, and it had to happen. Railing against that as some sort of argument for this bill is complete and utter nonsense.

Labor supported those measures at the time with the students, and, of course, they understood why, and so did all the Labor premiers. Everybody understood why. And we all went through that very sad situation. Many students who stayed here couldn't feed themselves. Communities came forward and fed students. Then the government extended its payments to students in recognition of that. Keeping everyone locked in the country didn't seem a very humane response. The Labor Party needs to wake up and maybe edit the talking points they're giving out to the backbenchers. They probably don't really appreciate what they're saying or how stupid the position they're adopting really is. With massive hindsight, it is massively stupid and massively foolish to make this argument, and it wouldn't have been done by them or anybody else in government.

When we get to the core of this bill, the overreach has come because of the government's fundamental mismanagement of the numbers of people coming into the country through their own migration settings and their lack of experience in managing it. I think the housing crisis, of course, has added fuel to this fire, but I agree with the member for Griffith. I'll say it: to blame students, particularly, for housing or rental affordability is an odd instinct of this government, and this bill is a hard response to that. It won't fix anybody's housing or rental crisis and, at the same time, risks a very big export industry—one that brings in a lot of workers to Australia.

I invite members here who are not from major capitals like Melbourne or Sydney to go into any restaurant in Sydney at any time of the day or night. You'll find students working in the kitchen. The truth is a lot of Australians don't want to work in kitchens anymore. A lot of Australians simply won't do it for the wages there. It's done by international students. You go into many businesses now—with security guards and all kinds of things—and people are doing work, from their international student visa, that is not filled by Australians. They're not taking Australian jobs either; they're simply doing a lot of heavy lifting inside the economy in a lot of sectors like hospitality and in roles that we cannot get people to fill.

The government dramatically reducing student numbers is not about addressing the shonks and the dodgy operators. They've always been there, and they always have to be continually managed out of the system. International education is heavily regulated by ASQA and TEQSA and regular state and federal reviews. The vast bulk of the sector is doing the right thing. The vast bulk of the sector spends all day, every day, year in, year out, in compliance, and that includes our major universities, who do a very good job of this. For the government to say this is a bill about shonks and dodgy operators is counterintuitive. It is not about those things.

In fact, I've just received an email from the new vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University and all the people there explaining their position on this bill and why it won't work. I want to say to members here from Western Sydney—and there are plenty of Labor ones as well as people in the coalition—we should very carefully read the view of Western Sydney University, one of Australia's most modern and internationally competitive universities, and their objections to this bill. They do a great job managing international students in Western Sydney, to the benefit of Western Sydney and our life in Sydney, and they make a great point. This is a major university funded by the taxpayer, funded by the Commonwealth, and they are worried about the minister's caps on international students and the arbitrary ability to change it. They're more than worried; they think it threatens their viability.

The government says this is somehow a bad model for universities to have, but it's the model worldwide now. We're in a global competition for the international student. We know of the volumes that come from China, India and Nepal. Most students come here for an education, and the vast bulk of students return to their home country educated. They have a good experience in Australia, and we have a good experience with them.

It is a profitable industry for Australia. It makes a lot of money. It also provides a workforce where we couldn't provide those workers, and our universities are able to fund themselves. When you look at the gap, if they get their student numbers caps in funding for universities, the government has no intention of replacing that money. The government couldn't possibly afford to replace that money, and it couldn't possibly, in 100 years of trying, raise enough tax to replace the revenues that would be lost by just our major universities. Why is the government embarking on this path? They're being warned not by shonky operators and not even by private sector colleges that have been around a long time but by all the major universities about this. Surely, that would give the education minister food for thought.

Some of the changes that do come in here about education agents can make some sense. We don't disagree with many of the changes in definition, and tightening is always welcome. Most of this can be tightened through the immigration side function rather than the education side function. I want to also allude to some of the other changes in the bill that the coalition finds could be very useful. However, the false narrative about shonks and crooks really sets the sector up, when most of the sector is internationally renowned, doing a great job and providing that great cultural and diplomatic function for Australia in educating our region. It's been an objective of multiple governments many times.

Happily, I'm old enough to remember the last time Labor was in government. This tends to happen in Labor governments. The last time was when Minister Kim Carr was in place. They had the VET FEE-HELP scheme, one of the most disastrous Commonwealth policies in terms of wasted money, where there were shonks and cowboys who took advantage of the government and made a fortune. Then the government cracked down so hard on the sector that they virtually crippled the international education sector because of their own policy, which opened up a wild west cabinet of funding under VET FEE-HELP.

I see that situation emerging again, where, because of the Labor government's ineptitude in managing migration, managing the student sector, understanding the intersection of both and understanding how to manage them properly, they are now pulling the lever as hard as they can on the sector, rejecting all visa applications. There are so many rejections coming through now—you don't have to be too smart to work that out—and every private sector and public sector internationally exposed college is getting mostly rejections. They're pulling the lever so hard that they threaten the viability of the sector, again cruelling a big industry for Australia. Does the government have any replacement income or industry for this fourth-largest export sector? It's fourth in our entire economy. The answer is, of course, that they don't.

That's why Western Sydney University's letter intrigued me as well. They already have a system in place where every student they bring has accommodation, and they're prepared to guarantee and sustain it. The government hasn't even looked at allowing universities to make their own use of housing and share housing, to build more housing fast on their campuses or to have more student accommodation. There is no attempt to actually deal with the fundamental driver of this bill, which is their incompetence in relation to the migration portfolio and their mismanagement of the volumes of people. Western Sydney University is right that they can do this sustainably, which they have promised, and could get it all done in a way that wouldn't put pressure on rents and housing. Indeed, they do that pretty well at the moment.

We are looking forward to the Senate inquiry and the review. There is much more that I could say about this bill, but I will certainly be watching it with interest. I want to signal to the sector that this is not the first time this has happened—the last time Labor was in government they crippled international education, and here we are again. I believe that a few years of this regime and this reduction in student numbers will be so bad for our economy that it will add further pressure to an already difficult economic environment—a shortage of labour, inflationary pressures and no replacement income from the international education sector for our universities. This could really be very damaging for the sector. If this is brought in, in the way the government is intending, I believe it will cause some very significant issues in this sector that may lead to further economic harm to our economy at a time when we should be doing no harm to the economy in general. It couldn't be worse timed.

I suppose the silver lining is, just like last time, a new government, if elected, would have to come in and look at fixing this fairly quickly, establishing certainty for the sector and certainty for our universities to continue to operate at the peak level they operate at and getting those revenues back. I know it would be a priority—restoring confidence to the sector—regardless of what this government's able to do.

I've expressed my concerns. I endorse all our major universities' concerns—and they have grave concerns. Any capable minister, any responsible government—we're not dealing with shonks or crooks when we're talking about our major universities in our country. They are the ones saying: 'Government, listen to us: this will not work. This will damage our operation, this will damage our revenue and this will damage our international reputation for no benefit.' I think that's a sober warning. I think the government should really rethink this bill and I look forward to the Senate inquiry.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. Education is not just a pillar of our economy but a cornerstone of our society. It changes lives and builds bridges across the globe. As Paul Keating—as well as the more contemporary member for Blaxland, the Minister for Education—said on a number of occasions, education is the key to the kingdom and a great education is a master key that opens every door. This bill is crucial for ensuring the continued integrity and quality of our international education sector.

Over the past decade, Australia's international education sector has become a vital component of our economic and social fabric, contributing $48 billion annually and educating more than three million students from around the globe. This sector not only fuels our economy but also fosters international goodwill, as students who study here carry a piece of Australia back to their home countries.

Australia's reputation as a premier destination for education is built on the quality and integrity of these institutions. This reputation has been meticulously cultivated over decades, with our universities, vocational educational institutions and schools earning accolades for their academic excellence and innovative teaching methods. However, a number of recent reviews—including the Nixon review and the Parkinson migration review—have highlighted significant issues that threaten this reputation. These reviews revealed exploitation within the visa system and underscored the need for stringent measures to protect students and ensure the sustainability of the sector.

This bill addresses those concerns head-on by implementing comprehensive reforms aimed at enhancing transparency, accountability and quality within the sector. The Nixon review, in particular, brought urgent attention to integrity issues in international education, exposing how some providers and agents were exploiting the system for financial gain. The Parkinson review into migration further highlighted the vulnerabilities in our visa system that allowed such exploitation to occur. These findings made it clear that without decisive action the trust that international students and their families place in Australia's education system could be eroded.

The bill before us today is designed to close those loopholes and restore confidence in our international education sector. The primary objective of the bill is to safeguard the integrity and quality of Australia's international education sector. It introduces several measures designed to prevent unscrupulous behaviour and ensure that only genuine providers operate within a sector known throughout the world for its high quality and high standards.

By expanding the fit and proper test for education providers, the bill ensures that those with cross-ownership and control interests are thoroughly vetted to prevent collusion and exploitation of students. The bill also empowers the Minister for Education to take decisive action against providers that fail to meet these standards. For example, the minister can now suspend or cancel the registration of providers under investigation for serious regulatory offences such as human trafficking or slavery-like practices. This provision ensures that providers cannot continue to enrol new students while under investigation, protecting students from potential harm and preserving the integrity of our education system. Furthermore, the bill mandates that new providers must demonstrate a commitment to domestic education by delivering courses to domestic students for at least two years before applying to register for international students. This requirement prevents the establishment of ghost colleges, which, unfortunately, are not fictional places where Caspar attends in order to upskill himself as a scarier ghost. Instead, these colleges are institutions that exist solely to exploit the visa system for financial gain.

One of the central provisions of the bill is the enhancement of transparency and accountability among education agents. Under the new regulations, education providers will have greater access to performance data of education agents, including information on student transfers and commissions. This measure aims to curb the practice of agents exploiting students by shifting them from one course to another—often of lower quality—to maximise commissions. By making this information accessible, providers can make more informed decisions about which agents to engage, thus protecting students from being misled.

Additionally, the bill empowers the secretary of the Department of Education to collect detailed information on the commissions and activities of education agents. This increased scrutiny ensures that the agents act in the best interests of students and uphold the standards expected of them. The inclusion of a new definition for education agent within the bill provides a clearer framework for regulating their activities, further strengthening the oversight of this crucial aspect of international education. The transparency provisions also require education providers to report any commissions paid to agents, particularly for offshore student transfers. This measure addresses a significant loophole that has been exploited by some agents to poach students from their original courses and enrol them in cheaper, less rigorous programs. By banning such commissions, the bill ensures that agents are incentivised to act in the best interests of students rather than pursuing financial gain through unethical practices. This change is expected to have a significant impact on the quality of education that international students receive, as it discourages enrolment in substandard courses.

Another significant aspect of the bill is the introduction of enrolment limits to manage the growth and quality of the international education sector. The Minister for Education is granted the authority to set limits on overseas student enrolments at both the provider and course levels. By carefully regulating the number of international students the government can ensure that educational institutions are not overstretched and that students receive the high-quality education they expect.

Furthermore, the bill includes provisions for the automatic suspension and cancellation of registrations for providers that fail to deliver courses to international students for 12 consecutive months. This measure targets dormant providers that pose a risk to the sector's integrity by potentially being used as fronts for fraudulent activity. The automatic cancellation provisions for providers who have not delivered courses to international students for 12 months further strengthens this regulatory framework. By removing dormant or inactive providers from the system, the bill helps to maintain a high standard of education and protect students from being enrolled in institutions that may not be committed to their educational needs.

Additionally, the minister will have the flexibility to exclude certain courses or providers from these limits if they demonstrate exceptional quality and alignment with Australia's strategic educational goals. This approach ensures that the system remains both dynamic and responsive to the needs of the sector while maintaining high standards of quality and integrity.

The bill also introduces a more robust fit and proper test to assess the suitability of education providers. Regulators are now required to consider factors such as cross-ownership and control of education agents and providers. This expanded scrutiny is crucial in preventing collusion and in ensuring that providers and agents operate with the highest standards of integrity.

The bill also empowers the minister to take immediate action against providers that engage in systemic quality issues or that deliver courses that do not meet Australia's critical skills needs. This power includes the ability to suspend or cancel courses that are found to have persistent quality problems or that are deemed to provide limited value to Australia's strategic objectives.

These measures collectively ensure the international education sector remains a high-quality and trustworthy environment for students. They also protect the reputation of Australian education providers, ensuring that they continue to be seen as leaders in delivering world-class education. By maintaining rigorous standards and taking swift action against noncompliant providers, the government demonstrates upholding the integrity of the sector. To that end, this bill brings significant benefit to all stakeholders within the international education sector.

For students it ensures access to high-quality education and protects them from exploitation and fraud. By enhancing the transparency and accountability of education agents, students and their families can have greater confidence in the choices they make regarding their education. The bill's provisions create a safer and more reliable environment for international students, who can focus on their studies without fear of being misled or exploited.

Education providers, while facing stricter compliance requirements, will also benefit from a more level playing field and the removal of unscrupulous competitors. This, in turn, enhances the overall reputation of Australia's education sector. Providers that adhere to the highest standards will be recognised and rewarded, attracting more students and building stronger international partnerships.

The bill also addresses the concerns of various stakeholder groups, including universities, vocational education providers and private training organisations. By setting clear and consistent standards, the bill helps maintain the trust and confidence of these stakeholders, ensuring their continued support and participation in the international education sector. This collaborative effort will ultimately lead to a more resilient and sustainable education system that benefits all involved.

Since the release of the Nixon review many other reviews have helped our government formulate a view towards legislating for a number of measures within this bill. The Albanese Labor government has taken swift and decisive action to address the integrity issues identified. Measures such as reintroducing working hours caps for international students and closing the concurrent enrolment loophole demonstrate our commitment to protecting the sector. These actions are complemented by the provisions in the bill, which build on these initial steps to create a comprehensive framework for ensuring quality and integrity in international education. The government's collaboration with the education sector has played a key part in crafting this bill. Continuous engagement with stakeholders, including universities, vocational education providers and industry associations has ensured that the reforms are both practical and aligned with the sector's needs. This approach will continue as our government works with the sector to implement new measures and monitor their impact.

Furthermore, our government has invested significantly in enhancing the capability of regulatory bodies, such as the Australian Skills Quality Authority, to enforce the new standards. This investment includes establishing an integrity unit within ASQA and providing additional resources to support their regulatory frameworks. These efforts ensure that the regulatory framework is not only fit for purpose but also adequately resourced to handle the increased oversight and enforcement responsibilities.

The Albanese Labor government has also committed to ongoing reviews and assessments of the impact of these reforms. The approach allows for continuous improvement and adaptation to emerging challenges, ensuring that the education sector remains resilient and responsive to changing circumstances at home and abroad. By maintaining an open dialogue with stakeholders and adapting policies as needed, the government demonstrates its commitment to sustaining the high standards of Australia's education system. Providers will have access to comprehensive data on agents, allowing them to identify and avoid those with poor track records. This transparency protects students and ensures that they receive the quality education they were promised.

Many Australian universities have built and fostered a reputation for excellence, attracting students from around the world. By maintaining stringent quality controls, they ensure that their students receive a world-class education—because that is, after all, what so many have travelled great lengths at great personal cost to seek out in our country. The bill supports these institutions by creating a regulatory environment that rewards integrity and penalises bad actors. This is not just a response to current challenges but a proactive step towards ensuring the long-term sustainability of Australia's international education sector.

By aligning with Australia's strategic goals in education and skills development, the bill sets out the foundation for continued growth and excellence, ensuring that our education system remains robust, transparent and accountable. By implementing stringent measures to achieve this outcome, we are protecting the interests of students and maintaining Australia's reputation as a leading education provider. We are fostering a fair and level playing field to benefit students, education providers and the broader community alike. We are ensuring that Australia remains and continues to be a preferred destination for those abroad who are seeking to obtain a quality education in their chosen fields and disciplines and, in doing so, contributing significantly to our economy and enhancing our global standing.

The Albanese Labor government has indeed already introduced similar legislation through the parliament earlier this year to ensure that our VET sector can reach the high standards needed of a sector we are depending on to train a workforce in one of the many jobs of high need in our workforce. We can do the same across higher education, ensuring that when someone looks at travelling all the way to Australia to study they do so with a sense of surety and the knowledge that the quality of the education they receive and the standards of the institutions they engage with are world-class.

In this multibillion-dollar market, some institutions may more closely identify as being in the education business rather than, at their core, operating as educators within the sector. If some clearly have no business educating anyone at all, we now have a framework by way of this bill that will bring probity and integrity back into something that provides billions of dollars into our economy and provides thousands of jobs across the country. I commend this bill to the House.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. First of all, Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you for your service to parliament. We've worked very closely. One of the inquiries of which I was the chair and you were the deputy chair was the inquiry into the efficacy and integrity of immigration agents, and I know how hard you fought when it came to, I think, Spanish international students—

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

Colombian.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Colombian, sorry; my apologies—who had been ripped off, which was very sad to see.

To make it very clear for people who may not know: when it comes to immigration agents and giving immigration advice, that can only be done by a practising lawyer and also an immigration qualified agent who is registered in Australia under OMARA, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority. When it comes to education agents, that is separate. They cannot give immigration advice.

The bill amends the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, the ESOS Act, to make changes that the government says will improve the quality and integrity of the international student sector. It is important to note so Australians are not misled about the primary purpose of this bill. Sadly, it's to hide the government's mess when it comes to immigration. We've seen that the government's mismanagement of the immigration system has led to a more than doubling of the number of international students in Australia from 336,845 in March 2022 to a peak of 713,144 in February 2024. When it comes to this huge increase, I must admit immigration agents, who are also looking after the education sector and the education of international students, were very excited about what the government was doing, because they were basically increasing all these numbers and letting more people in. They were very excited about it until they started receiving notices—I know 700 went out to immigration agents—to 'please explain why you've allowed this person to come to the country with false documentation,' or, where education agencies were running schools, Home Affairs would walk in and tell them to remove students midclass.

This has all come about now—this is what the immigration agents and education agents have told me—because, under the previous coalition government, we had very strict controls when it came to the security checks of people coming to this country. We weren't putting the burden onto education agencies or immigration agents to make sure all the documents were bona fide; we did that as Home Affairs. That's why we had this kind of open-door policy. This has put huge pressure on universities around Australia. Several top universities in Australia are getting concerned about the repercussions for them when it comes to allowing students in who may have false documentation, so they have decided to place restrictions on applications such as those from Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Jammu and Kashmir. Instead of scrutiny and doing due diligence, the universities have basically now had to put a blanket ban in. I must say too, though, that it's not the universities' responsibility to have the know-how to check and do all the due diligence when it comes to the scrutiny of false documentation.

Under Labor there are 80,000 student visa holders who are now on their third student visa or more—some are on an eighth, ninth or 10th student visa—as a backdoor way of staying in Australia. This huge increase is obviously putting on great pressure when it comes to rentals. I know this firsthand in my own electorate of La Trobe, where I visited the Casey Hospital and talked to the nurses. They were saying that, when it comes to bringing nurses into the country, they actually find it most difficult to find accommodation for them. We're finding right across not only Victoria but Australia that international students who have come in these huge numbers—and we love the international students, but this policy of having an open door where anyone can come in without being scrutinised has put huge pressure on immigration agents, education agents, universities and also rentals.

The government has a deeply offensive and divisive false narrative that the growth in international students is basically driven by shonks or crooks. It is not that at all. Yes, there are people in that industry, like all industries, who take advantage of innocent people, and they must be and should be punished. One thing I've pushed for for a long time—I know it was one of our recommendations, Deputy Speaker—is giving the Australian Border Force more when it comes to search-and-seizure provisions. They don't have those search-and-seizure provisions when it comes to these issues. They need to call in the Australian Federal Police. The Australian Federal Police have the search warrants and basically go in there, search for the evidence and put the case together even though the Australian Border Force have the necessary skills.

While we acknowledge this bill contains some integrity measures, and I recognise those, the government's amendments to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act are primarily concerned with the imposition of a cap on the number of foreigners who can study in Australia. We're now having a big cap put in place simply because the doors have been opened.

Sadly, as I was saying, there are immigration agents and education agents who've come to me who have been put under great stress and have even threatened to have their business closed down. It's proposed that the methodology for the minister's decision will be set out in legislation to be detailed in parliament by 31 December 2024, supposedly after consultation with stakeholders. However, the sector will be required to put in place the new caps from 1 January 2025. So if the government moves very slowly, which I assume it will, and its decision is made in December, it's going to put an awful lot of pressure on education agents' forward planning, when it comes to staff and university, because it has to be turned around so quickly.

The international student market is a huge market in Australia. With $36.4 billion in revenue, it was Australia's fourth largest export in 2022-23. I congratulate Senator Sarah Henderson, the shadow education minister, who went in really hard to back students from India, Nepal and Pakistan who've unfortunately been targeted by the decisions made by this Labor government. On 22 April, in an article in the SydneyMorning Herald entitled 'Unis ban Indian student applications as visa rejections hit record highs' it said:

Universities are blocking applications from students from entire countries as the federal government's latest stage in its migration crackdown makes it even tougher for some institutions to recruit foreign pupils. Some universities, include at least one prestigious Group of Eight institution, have taken the drastic step of banning or limiting applications from countries deemed at high risk of visa refusal, including India and Nepal.

When it comes to international students, Nepal and India are fantastic overall international students and they should not be targeted. Vice chancellors from small universities say that processing visas has been highly unpredictable and has targeted them unfairly. This is interesting too, because it flies in the face of the Prime Minister's joint commitment with Prime Minister Modi made at the first Australian-Indian annual summit in March 2023 that 'the efficient and timely processing of student visa applications for Indian nationals' will be facilitated. It says nothing about banning them altogether. It actually says they will be made in an efficient and timely manner. That hasn't been the case.

At the same event, I know Prime Minister Modi put pressure on Prime Minister Albanese to change the situation when it came to safer community funding for Hindu temples and other temples, because, sadly, they had been targeted. We didn't have a reverse face when it came to that position. Also, when these international students come here, many of them go to places of worship, and it was sad that they were targeted in such a way.

In 2023, there were around 5,800 education agencies and more than 23,000 individual education agents facilitating overseas student enrolments with Australian providers, reflecting the sheer size of this market. With 23,000 people, can you imagine how many jobs there are in this sector? Providers typically pay a commission to these agents per student. The exact amount is not disclosed, but it could be up to 15 per cent. It's a very important message for Australia to let countries know overseas, and this is something we put in place in the previous government when it came to those applying, that you get these unscrupulous—I won't call them agents, because they weren't agents—people lodging international students or visa applications and putting them through the system. Under OMARA, we make sure that if the person is putting through the one computer they must be registered with OMARA, unless it's an individual. They can't get group applications going, which is something we put in place.

While the coalition government made quite sensible and constructive improvements to the quality and integrity of the education of international students, we are disappointed with the minister's false narratives which, as I said, characterise this industry as shonks and crooks. It is just not the case. Yes, like any industry, they have some criminal elements in there. There always are when there's some money to be made. But most education agents I've met and dealt with are very hardworking and very dedicated and just want to see people come to Australia, get a great education and enjoy the Australian lifestyle as they stay here. After two years, the Minister for Home Affairs only issued letters to 34 providers just a few weeks ago. No providers have been shut down. So, if they're all shonks and crooks, it sounds like they are getting away with it. Those colleges which are providing a back door for foreigners to come to Australia and work should be weeded out. We await the outcome of a Senate inquiry into this. I am looking forward to that. Again, Madam Deputy Speaker, congratulations for— (Time expired)

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do want to get rid of the shonks. I completely agree with many speakers that that is not the majority of the providers, and it certainly isn't the way I would describe providers in my electorate of Macquarie.

In fact, I want to start by talking about what quality looks like, what a quality vocational education and training organisation looking after the educational needs of international students actually looks like. I see it in my community and have known it in my community for many years through the Torrens University Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. I want to describe this quality, because it's streets away from the sorts of providers that this legislation will focus on. It's the No. 1 ranked hotel school in Oceania, based on the QS world university rankings 2022-23. It offers a world-class education with really practical training and hands-on experience at Leura, in the Blue Mountains. It's an undergraduate program. As part of that program, students are required to reside on campus. So they live on campus, and all the accommodation, meals and recreational requirements are provided by the school. When it's full, it has about 250 students for a 2½-year program of which 12 months is actually in a paid placement in the industry. This is the other part for overseas students in Australia. In local communities, they can play a really key role in helping to tackle the skills shortage. That's certainly the case in the Blue Mountains tourism industry.

This school has been operating since 1991. Over that time, it has developed very strong relationships with our local hotel sector, predominantly in the accommodation sector. But it also employs its own people. Around 100 staff are employed. I am told around 90 per cent of them are locals who live in the Blue Mountains and, thanks to the hotel school, work in the Blue Mountains. As well, at any time, between 40 and 60 per cent of the local suppliers that are used are sourced in our local region. I wanted to give this picture to show what quality looks like as we discuss this quality and integrity bill.

The Fairmont Resort is the largest hotel resort in the Blue Mountains and, I must add, hosted the Blues ahead of the State of Origin match. It was thanks to being accommodated at the Fairmont Resort that they were able to take in the fresh air of the Blue Mountains and deliver victory. Charlie Young, the general manager of the Fairmont, describes the business's reliance on the students from the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. He says: 'They employ a lot of people while they're at the campus. They provide them with much-needed real-world experience in multiple departments as part of their curriculum during their required industry placement.' He said, 'Their brand is one of service excellence.' That's what he sees in the students. He points out that finding qualified, engaged, positive and skilled employees is difficult. He's talking about the Blue Mountains, where there is quite a serious skills shortage in our hospitality industry.

I want people to keep in mind that tourism is the prime part of our economic drive up there. We're talking about the Blue Mountains World Heritage area, the Three Sisters and all the bushwalks surrounding it, plus all our amazing local businesses. So tourism is absolutely key to our local economy staying alive and healthy. He says, 'Knowing we have a hospitality school around the corner with students eager to learn and test their skills and knowledge helps to reduce our employment challenges and reduces staff turnover, enabling us to retain qualified, engaged employees.'

I want people to have that picture when we think about the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 and what it aims to achieve. This is the sort of quality provider we want overseas students to experience when they come to Australia. I've been to many functions there over the years and talked to many of the students who take great pride in being able to cater to local events and learn their craft. That's why this legislation is here. It's targeting quality and integrity. We are really committed to lifting the standards across the board.

While my own experiences have informed me of the quality training of overseas students, this piece of legislation does not stand in isolation. It comes from evidence that has been captured by inquiries, like the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, or the Nixon review, and the review of the migration system. Both brought urgent integrity issues to our attention. It's also informed by last year's interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, called 'Quality and integrity—the quest for sustainable growth': interim report into international education. I'm a member of that committee and have been looking into these issues since we came to government in 2022. There is no doubt that integrity is absolutely essential, but the evidence shows that it is absent in certain circumstances and certain providers. One of the issues this bill addresses is the activities of education agents and the way they interact with providers in Australia.

There's a really important role for international education agents overseas to help students navigate their move from another country to Australia, to help them identify the courses and the institutions that will help them. The reviews, feedback from the sector, and stories from students told us that there is a problem and that there has been collusion and unscrupulous practices between some agents and providers. That is not good enough. That is not the way we want to start the experience for an overseas student coming to Australia. For a start, we know that, when students come to Australia and have a good experience, it builds their love of Australia and their relationship with Australia for many years to come. One of the great benefits of having overseas students is that they can experience what it is like to be in Australia. We want that to be a positive experience. We don't want them to go home and, in years to come, when they move into roles of responsibility, not think well of Australia. We really want them to have the best possible experience.

So our response to these concerns is to, in this bill, insert a definition of 'education agent' which is better at capturing their activities. This is about strengthening the fit-and-proper requirement used by regulators to apply increased scrutiny to any cross-ownership of businesses, including those between an education agent and an education provider. There's also a definition of 'education agent commission'. That will really allow for complementary amendments to be made to our National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018 so that we ban commissions from being paid to education agents for onshore student transfers.

These are technical things that will limit the ability for the wrong thing to happen. These are things the sector has asked for and will certainly help address one of the issues that was revealed, which is the poaching of newly arrived students so that they shift from their original course into a cheaper, more limited course from a different provider. And this bill is full of practical things that will ensure better experiences. As well as the fit-and-proper considerations, it empowers the Minister for Education to pause applications, to register providers or courses for provision to overseas students if issues are raised. And it gives greater access to agent performance data, including information on transfers and completions. Without data, we can't really know what's going on.

Under the bill, providers will have to deliver one or more courses to domestic students in Australia who are not overseas students for consecutive study periods, totalling at least two years, before they deliver courses to overseas students. This is to deter those who are seeking to enter the sector purely for the purpose of facilitating migration outcomes or trafficking people into bonded labour. That is the seriousness of some of the concerns and examples that have been raised.

The bill also prevents education providers from using their business operations as a cover for fraudulent activity. Those who have not delivered courses to overseas students for a period of 12 consecutive months will have their registration automatically cancelled. The bill also allows for providers who are being investigated for serious regulatory offences to be automatically suspended from enrolling new international students.

There are many other elements to this bill, but for me the primary focus and what I'm so pleased to be here supporting is the quality and integrity measures, which mean that when we meet an international student studying in Australia we can be proud, knowing they are getting a quality education and one that is value for them and allows them to return to their home with a set of world-class skills. That's what it should be, and that's what this legislation will help us deliver, as part of a range of measures we have introduced since we've come to government. I commend the bill to the House.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

International education is an Australian industry success story of the last two decades. Since the opening of Australian institutions to international students in the 1980s, the education sector has innovated its business models and leveraged its strengths and reputations to grow Australia's higher education sector into our largest non-mining export industry and our fourth biggest export earner. This is a huge achievement. International education provides value through, first and foremost, the fees paid to our universities. For universities these fees that the international students pay allow an important cross-subsidisation that helps our universities deliver comparatively affordable education to Australian students. These fees are also critical for research funding over time, contributing to a tripling in research funding since 2000. This has enabled world-class research that helps attract foreign students and employees and has propelled innovative Australian industries, such as quantum computing.

Also, as a second-order benefit, the Australian international education sector has increased our soft diplomacy in the region and beyond. In 2023 the QS world ranking of higher education found that Australia has the third highest concentration of high-quality universities in the world, behind only the US and the UK. This acts as an enormous pool for international talent and is directly and indirectly responsible for almost 70 per cent of Australia's international tourism. Since 2005, 3.7 million international students have studied in Australia, fallen in love with our cities and regions, and experienced our unique landscape, culture and way of life—and those who have returned to their own countries have taken that back home and increased Australia's soft power across the region, in particular.

Finally, as we think of the future of Australian industry and businesses, the international education sector is an area that Australia should want to expand and grow. This is because this export earner really plays to Australia's enormous strengths: our incredibly strong education system and our welcoming way of life. This is an education sector that is of high value and provides high-value jobs for highly educated Australian people. This should be an area that, as a country, we want to continue to grow and develop.

But I appreciate that there are some concerns over the growth in the sector, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. As at February this year there are almost 700,000 international students enrolled to study in Australia, a 20 per cent increase on 2019. This is partly due to a long backlog caused by COVID, but the unavoidable truth is that it is also the fault of loopholes in the migration system.

The Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, known as the Nixon review, presented in 2023, identified that generous visa provisions to enable our education system have led to a proliferation of unscrupulous operators gaming the system in two key ways: firstly, education agents seeking to extract commissions from international students for transfers that are not necessarily in their best interests; and, secondly, so-called ghost institutions that offer vague courses targeting non-genuine students who are looking for a back door into Australia for work. While not exclusive to the vocational sector, the majority of these practices and behaviours are accounted for there. These operators do not reflect the whole sector, but they represent a significant enough share of the sector to be a danger to the integrity and reputation of Australia's international education sector.

The Nixon review, as well as last year's Migration Strategy, suggested significant crackdowns on these operations. But, unless you were a student or an education policy wonk, many of these various reviews into the system went unnoticed. These concerns have found new life more recently because of the impact the education system has had on net overseas migration and particularly rental affordability. The Grattan Institute estimates that, for every 100,000 unanticipated migrants who come to Australia, rents rise by approximately one per cent. Feeling the pressure, the government is seeking to kill two birds with one stone, cleaning up the sector while implementing a speedy cut to net overseas migration. Unfortunately, students are the lowest-hanging fruit.

Half of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is quite sensible and goes to some of the major concerns and subsequent recommendations of the Nixon and migration reviews. This includes introducing increased transparency over agent commissions and associations with providers, as well as stricter requirements on providers to demonstrate genuineness. Parts 7 to 8, however, are problematic—problematic in the powers delegated to the Minister for Education to impose hard caps on courses as well as providers and potential penalties imposed for exceeding these caps.

While I understand the concerns with migration, international students and education institutions are not to blame for our housing crisis despite the rhetoric surrounding this bill. Instead, it is decades of inaction from coalition and Labor governments at all levels of government—state, federal and local governments—to put forward adequate housing policies to provide for future generations. They have been missing in action, and we now have a housing crisis. But, now that we're in this mess, the government would risk causing irreparable damage to the education sector. Meanwhile, the coalition seems to be broadly supportive, if not disappointed that it doesn't go further.

I find this baffling. Consider the comparison here with the mining sector. For decades, the overwhelming weight of local and international evidence has pointed to the need to address climate change produced by the fossil fuel industry, yet both Labor and coalition governments have at various times been swayed by the argument that this would come at an unacceptable cost to the Australian economy. Yet, when shown one year of migration numbers that highlight their collective inaction on housing over decades, both parties are ready to put shackles on the largest non-mining export that we have—an export that last year contributed half of our GDP growth and that supports employment for around a quarter of a million Australians. Am I missing something here, or is it just that the education system needs more lobbyists?

As I've said, I am really sympathetic to the arguments surrounding the quality of the international education system, and I am not ignorant of the pressures on the cost of housing that Australians are facing right now. But I think this needs to be done carefully. I think there are other ways that the government's broad objectives can be achieved without killing the goose.

As is so often the case, the Grattan Institute provided some considered proposals that would be fairer and less disruptive and would work better than implementing student caps, and, to their credit, the government has implemented some of these. Raising the student fee from $710 to $2,500 would raise an additional $1 billion a year, enough to fund the government's crisis accommodation measures for women and children experiencing domestic violence outlined in this year's budget. The government's increase to $1,600, which came into effect this week, will discourage some students from participating in low-value programs.

Additionally, the government introduced a genuine student test and lifted English language requirements, as well as cracking down on visa hopping for those who have completed their studies. Both of these measures will make it harder for low-value studies or unskilled professions to be used as a visa back door. Restrictions in visa hopping alone is expected to lower the number of international students and graduates by 140,000 students by 2030.

But the problem with these measures is that they wouldn't necessarily work fast enough for the government. I get it. Housing is a huge issue for my community as well, and I'm absolutely on the record, across this parliament and since before the last election, as calling for the need for action. But this bill represents a kind of short-term political thinking that landed us in the housing crisis to begin with, and, once again, offers no long-term solution for getting us out of it either.

I've run businesses, and I know that businesses can't turn on a dime. You can't turn your customers on for one week and then, three weeks later, say: 'I'll turn you off. Don't worry, I'll come back to you in a couple of months when I feel I'm ready to have you again.' The education industry has taken many years to build up in Australia. We should respect the work that has gone into building this industry and the enormous contribution that it makes to this country. We shouldn't expect that we can turn it off with the flick of a switch and then expect it to restart again when we think that we need some more export earnings. Business doesn't work like that, and the real world doesn't work like that. If we do follow through with what the government wants and what the opposition seems to want even more, we will pay for this in the long term in our export earnings and in our universities. That is entirely serious.

We do have other options, and I've outlined a couple of them, in terms of how to take a more measured approach to addressing this migration problem. We should be looking carefully at what happened to Canada, which imposed similar visa caps and ended up with a much stronger response from students, who now are not choosing Canada at all. There's been a much more significant reduction in earnings from those overseas students.

I know we need to change the education system for overseas students. From speaking to people and young people in the community, I know there are some genuine concerns about how integrated some courses are, particularly for overseas students, and how to make it a better experience not only for the overseas students but also for the Australian students studying alongside them.

There are real challenges here. But flat caps and, particularly, government control of courses completely stand against the entrepreneurial spirit which has given us this export industry. Again, businesses cannot and will not evolve and grow in the way that they have if government is constantly dictating the details, because it's not the nature of government to build and grow these sorts of industries which have added enormous value to this country.

We need to fix the housing crisis, but we need to do it in other ways. That is the appropriate thing to do, rather than to, once again, use migrants and particularly overseas students as a sort of punching bag in this issue. If nothing else, we need to make sure all of our actions focus on ensuring that we retain the highest-value students—the ones that contribute most to the economy, in terms of both their fees and their other contributions to the economy. That is the way to do this well. That is where the increase in fees for the visa application would weed out many of those students who are not really here to study but to work. I think that is a much more effective way: continuing to raise that fee so only genuine students come here to get a degree that costs a fair amount of money and provides a fair amount of return to the Australian government and to the Australian people.

I feel like the crossbench has tried to be the voice of reason in this debate and has put forward some sensible amendments that will mitigate the potential damage of this bill. This includes a sunset clause for two years, to be moved by Ms Daniel, which will prevent these dramatic powers being used by future governments. Ms Tink will move to exclude course caps—I see those as an egregious overreach from a government into the running of private organisations—and actually give our universities the ability to respond to the needs of the market, because we know that government is not in touch with the needs of the market and so most likely will once again kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Dr Ryan has requested a review to be conducted on the validity of the caps. Finally, Ms Chaney has sought to push back the start of this legislation by one year to give students and universities certainty, given that the enrolment process for 2025 is already well underway, as well as cut out sections 7 and 8 entirely. These are reasonable and thoughtful amendments that would mitigate some of the worst effects of this bill.

I urge the government to reconsider this course of action and look for other ways that it can manage the education system without this draconian impact and the likely impact on the broader strength of this export industry that we have built up—the universities have built up, in particular, as well as the vocational community—over many years. I will be supporting the amendments from the crossbench, but I will not be supporting this bill. I believe it is a step too far by government, and I'm genuinely concerned about the economic and reputational damage these powers present, if not now then later under future governments. I particularly urge the coalition to consider that they used to be the party of free enterprise and of trying to build and grow businesses and really letting these sorts of success stories grow. Again, I find it unfathomable that the coalition is once again leading the charge on trying to destroy one of Australia's most successful export industries and one that is a credit to all of us and all the people who have built it up over time.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bill that is before us, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, is measured, and it's about saving a sector from itself. I say that because I've worked with the university sector for a long time not just in this role but in previous roles. I'm the federal member for Bendigo; we have a La Trobe University campus in my electorate. I have been engaged with that campus since the day I was elected.

I say that it's a sector that needs to be saved from itself because I disagree that we should be viewing higher education as an export industry. I disagree with that statement. Education is a fundamental right, and the first role of our universities should be providing a world-class education to Australian domestic students first and foremost. They are publicly funded universities. At some point, about a decade ago, they reached a tipping point. They reached a tipping point when our universities went from having a majority of academic and academic support staff to having more general and marketing staff. It is a sector which has grown out of its original purpose, which was to offer quality higher education for Australian domestic students. It has tipped into this marketing area, to the extent that I don't believe that the university sector fully understands what's going on with their campuses and their courses. I say that with the experience that has been shared with me both as a federal member and as somebody who has family members who work in higher education.

I'll start first with the people that we've called the dodgy providers and the reforms there. It does feel like there is broad support across our parliament to crack down on the dodgy providers. Quite frankly, it's frustrating that it has taken so long to see reforms come before this parliament. It's taken a Labor government to bring forward reforms to shut down these dodgy providers, the visa hopping and the exploitation of those international students that occurs. It's this terrible 'everybody knows' secret—warehouses where there are supposed to be higher education institutions, shopfronts where nobody actually studies, but the paperwork is done and people are churned through. We have people who are here as international students on their third or fourth visa, meaning that they've been studying—technically studying—in this country for 15 years.

The point of a higher education, the point of being an international student and what we need to step back to in this debate is that international students are here for an educational experience. Some, along the way, may meet someone that they love and want to settle here in Australia. Some may get a job after it and be recruited to work. But what we now know, because the data tells us, is a huge chunk of them go to the next provider, and quite often that international student is the one that is being exploited.

People who cut hair in Melbourne are in some cases working here on an international student visa, but they're not studying to be a hairdresser; they're studying accountancy or something else. They're paying somebody, or someone else is doing the book work—their mum might be doing it—because they no longer qualify for that visa, so the student is the person who they are all anchored to. We have seen report after report tabled in this parliament about how international student education is being exploited for people who are looking for those work rights. That has to stop, and this bill looks to address that.

But, as I said at the beginning, we actually need to go further, because not even our universities understand or accept what is happening within their own university. It isn't just the dodgy RTOs or the shonky providers. It is also institutions that we say are world class and deeply respected. I am talking about Melbourne university, I am talking about UNSW, I'm talking about Sydney University—I am talking about some of our big universities, where this is happening in their own courses. There are courses being delivered through the University of Melbourne which are 95 per cent international students and above and beyond. They have students who are struggling to be able to complete the work because they don't have the English capability.

One of the comments that was raised by those opposite was that if they had introduced an English proficiency test we would have got upset about it. Depending on the visa, if you choose to study at Melbourne university in the graduate department of education, there should be an expectation that you have a high level of English proficiency. There should be that standard, yet we have students right now in that course at Melbourne university who don't meet that standard. They're putting their coursework through translators to submit it.

The problem that we have with higher education in our country is it has got away from that original image and original purpose, which is about delivering a quality of education, and the marketers have taken over. So when the sector has got to that stage where it is out of control, it is up to government to intervene and it is up to government to look at caps. Those universities are some of the most successful lobbyists, who are very well paid and who spend a lot of money engaging with all of us in here. They are probably right up there with the AMA when it comes to their ability to lobby. The G8 is incredibly powerful and incredibly influential. They've got to take ownership of what is happening in their courses and in their subjects.

One of the other things that is really important about this bill is that it is trying to encourage international students to think about studying at a regional campus. I've met with my local campus, Bendigo, at La Trobe University, who were a bit concerned with this bill. They've got only about 200 international students on the campus who are genuinely engaged in subjects and study. They are the one, two, three and four within a class. They have a support network that is around them. They have support in finding education. Quite often, when they are in a housing arrangement, it is purposed student accommodation that is found. That is a good example. That is the example that we would assume would be there to support international students when they come.

This isn't about the campuses where it is a small proportion of their overall student population. This is about the campuses where it is the majority of their students. This is about the courses where it is the majority of the students, and where the universities are not providing the quality of support that is required for that many students. The Central Queensland University has a campus in Melbourne CBD that does not have one domestic student at it. Now, what purpose is that set up for? This idea that our higher education institutions should be about making money and enterprise is the debate we need to be having. Should they? Should our higher education, our universities, be about making money and enterprise, marketing courses and attracting students no matter what, giving them a false bill of hope that they may one day become Australian citizens?

Some of the big G8 universities got caught out marketing: 'Do this course. Come to Australia. It leads to Australian citizenship.' That is not right. We want people to study in Australia as international students because of the cultural exchange and because of the education experience that they will get. This bill aims to restore that integrity. Unfortunately, with the growth of international students in our university sector, what has happened is that it has got out of control. Support isn't being offered to the people being invited here to study, and, quite often, they are the victims of exploitation. And the universities just churn through.

In fact, I met more international students before I became a member of parliament than I did when I was actually working in the university sector. Whilst I worked in the university sector a long time ago, in 2002 and 2003, I met a lot in the previous role I had before entering this parliament. And I didn't work for a university; I worked for the United Workers Union—it was called United Voice back then—and I met a lot of international students that were working in cleaning and hospitality. Some of them were being treated incredibly badly. They were technically here to study, but were working as many hours as they could, trying to do what they could to pay their course fees and to try their very best to stay in Australia.

I can remember house-visiting people living in horrible conditions. On every spare piece of floor there was a mattress. Five would be squeezed into a room and 10 or 15 into a house. It was unsafe. I'll be honest with you: I don't think that's the housing crisis that people in Australia are talking about, squashing five people into a bedroom. That's completely unacceptable. That's unsafe. But this is what the world is like for some international students. I don't conflate the two, because I think that the housing experience of many international students is quite shocking. Most Australians would say, 'That's just appalling and should not be happening in our country,' but it is.

When I spoke to these international students, I went in there with these basic assumptions that maybe they worked for a dodgy provider or maybe that's who they were doing the university courses for. But I was shocked to learn that a lot of these international students were actually studying at our universities—the ones that we try and hold up in great lights to say, 'These are amazing institutions.' They have to take more responsibility for international students. I believe that means we do have to get control of the numbers and bring them down so we can properly support the ones that are here and make sure they aren't being exploited in terms of their housing, their work experience and the support around them. But, with caps, we also need to make sure that the education experience is genuine and that they are able to do the work and get that proper educational experience. The caps are critical because that's about saying to the sector: 'You need to reform. You need to step back and think about what your purpose is. Are you about providing education to students brought here by marketing, who may not have the English capability, who may not have the commitment to study, who are here because they want work rights, or are you here to provide a genuine education?'

When it comes to this issue, we need to start listening to a broader academic experience. People who are living the experience of having to try and teach classes with up to 90 to 96 per cent, and in some cases 100 per cent, international students need to ask: is that the purpose of Australian universities here in this country? We are experiencing a downturn in domestic students wanting to go to universities after decades of upturn. It's on the universities and on us to start to talk about the student experience. Domestic students are more likely to say: 'Maybe I'll wait. Maybe I'll do TAFE. It's not quite my thing. There's a debt that I'm concerned about.' But there's more to unpack about why people aren't going to university. Perhaps it's the educational experience. It's hard to participate in a tute when you are the one domestic student with a large proportion of international students whose cameras are off because people aren't engaging and are simply there to tick the box because they are here not for the educational experience but for the work rights. I say again that I do not believe the universities are being genuine and honest about what's happening on their campuses and what's happening in their courses.

That is why this bill talking about caps has become so necessary. It's so we can rebuild our higher education sector to be something of what it was originally envisioned to be, making sure that it's about quality education, making sure that academic jobs are able to be about teaching, not about compliance, not about making sure that people hit all these criteria. We need to get back to a place where our universities are employing more academics and support staff than marketing staff. That's our problem, with where we're at with higher education. We hit a tipping point about a decade ago. If we fast forward to where we are today, caps are critical to making sure that we have oversight of what's happening on our campuses. I wish we didn't have to be here, but this is where the sector is at.

This bill is about ensuring integrity. It is about ensuring that we are getting universities to focus on what they're here to do: provide quality higher education. This idea that caps will somehow interfere with that is nonsense.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's be clear: as a nation we should be proud to be recognised as a leading provider of international education, with students from over 140 countries educated here in the past 12 months alone. Whilst this success confers significant economic benefits across the board it also ensures our society's enriched by the exchange, and it strengthens our diplomatic ties. But, rather than celebrating these truths, it would seem there are those who wish to use the sector's success as a launching pad for a shallow political debate around immigration, with the end result being a potentially devastating outcome for our country's reputation and, ultimately, the ongoing viability of what is currently our most profitable export sector behind mining.

More than three million people from overseas have benefited from at least part of their education being completed in Australia in the last decade. And, contrary to widespread commentary, the vast majority—80 per cent—went home. The ones that stayed add significant value to our country. They are the emergency doctors who got us through COVID, the nurses who care for our elderly and the engineers who shore up our cybersecurity.

From a bigger picture perspective, international education generated $48 billion in export revenue in just the last year, second only to the mining sector. Yet we stand here tonight having a debate on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 about removing that export income. I would ask this government: without that income, how will you fund it? How will you provide universities services for the domestic students you keep citing?

The sector supports 250,000 jobs nationally across the education, retail, hospitality and tourism industry environments. After years of reform and diminishing government investment, the truth is that our current domestic education sector relies on international students to remain economically viable and to be able to offer the courses domestic students wish to pursue. Meanwhile, in terms of productivity, international students are an invaluable resource for small businesses, helping to fill gaps across the economy.

This is particularly true in North Sydney, which, with over 28,000 small to medium-sized businesses, is the third-largest business centre in the country. Fascinatingly, nearly half of the owners of the businesses in North Sydney were born overseas, which is significantly more than the average across New South Wales and Australia. Beyond the economic upside, however, is the fact that, as recognised in the foreign policy white paper, international education is also a powerful tool for foreign policy soft power. The changes this bill seeks to make to the international education sector will not only limit the operation of several tertiary education providers in my electorate; it will also negatively impact our small-business community, as labour supply would dry up and demand would diminish. Specifically, businesses offering accommodation services, insurance companies, restaurants, bars and cafes have all reached out to me to express their fears that this reform would affect the livelihood of small-business owners. Certainly quality, integrity and sustainable growth for the sector are all desirable, but the question is: will this bill produce those outcomes, or will this bill, with its unchecked powers that it confers to the minister of the day, risk the sector's ability to operate effectively and within a free-market frame?

The Nixon review identified within the international education sector systemic integrity issues that we do need to deal with. These include collusive business practices between education providers, their agents and non-genuine students who seek to abuse the system for personal gain. The North Sydney community agrees that these issues must be addressed. The community also accepts that international student numbers have returned faster than expected to pre-COVID levels and that the sustainable growth of the sector is genuinely desirable. The bill seeks to address these issues in part by introducing measures around student recruitment and creating a provision that education of domestic students be prioritised ahead of international students. These measures are broadly welcomed by both providers and my community. But these efforts are overshadowed by the government's overreach when it comes to the unprecedented new ministerial powers being proposed.

Ultimately, many in my community are concerned this legislation simply goes too far. Under the guise of quality and integrity, the necessary checks and balances to ensure effectiveness are conspicuously absent. This then leads them to question whether this legislation is in fact a thinly veiled response to a larger political debate around immigration more generally, for it seems the two major political parties are intent on targeting international students in a bid to slash migration in a poll-driven war on the cost of living and on housing. With that frame in mind, then, this legislation fails to strike a balance between improving the quality and integrity of the scheme and ensuring sustainable growth for the sector.

While the ministerial powers are being presented as a mechanism for managing temporary migration and alleviating the fallout of unsustainable growth, my community is unconvinced they will deliver the desired outcome and is concerned any benefit will be outweighed by damage to Australia's largest service export. As the CEO of the International Education Association of Australia said:

While stakeholder consultations are being offered, this latest measure will send all the wrong messages, yet again, of Australia's reliability as a welcoming study destination country. Coming on top of the recently announced changes to financial capability requirements … visa processing slowdowns and backlogs, prospective students and our education agents will feel incredibly let down.

I will be arguing there is real danger of government overreach in this new policy approach. If implemented, the new ministerial powers to unilaterally limit enrolments across entire sectors, institutions, courses and locations create an unprecedented level of government intervention in what is currently essentially a free-enterprise sector. Given this, I share the sector's concerns that these powers lack accountability and will be largely unchecked. The fact that there's no requirement for the minister to consult before issuing a notice to limit international students at a particular institution is unacceptable, as is the fact that the government has offered no indication of how it will calculate enrolment caps for each course or situation. Ultimately, providers are being asked to blindly trust the government on these matters, and, unsurprisingly, education providers, including those in my electorate, are concerned. Giving the minister of the day power to suspend providers who exceed their international student cap by even one student for up to 12 months is an extraordinary and, many would argue, completely disproportionate measure, given the enrolment journey for an international student typically takes 12 months or longer.

Meanwhile, the minister's new powers to arbitrarily suspend or cancel courses deemed not to align with Australia's skill sets, needs and priorities ignore the fact most international students are educating themselves for a career in their own home country rather than in ours, creating yet again a circumstance that seems incongruent. Recognising that a government hell-bent on action is difficult to forestall, some have suggested the setting of caps should only be allowed at the provider level, removing the ministerial power to set caps at the course level. I remain unconvinced that this really is a space and place where ministerial discretion is warranted. Universities already deliver education under strict and mature regulatory and funding arrangements and are increasingly asked to deliver graduates in line with Australia's skill needs, based on advice from agencies including Jobs and Skills Australia. Given this, it would seem self-evident that giving a minister the power to intervene at the course level is a dangerous overreach which would have serious consequences for institutional autonomy, existing regulations and student choices.

Beyond that, for me, it's simply bureaucracy on roids and risks creating a legislative framework that flies in the face of basic free market principles. Why is it that this government believes an education minister will be better placed to anticipate the needs of those seeking and willing to pay to be educated? Capping overall student numbers is one thing, but setting them with respect to specific courses is a completely different scenario, and it's one that neither my community nor I am are comfortable with. Beyond this, many providers also lament that the potential impact of this legislation has been seriously underestimated. They cite the fact that international students commencing in the 2025 academic year are already in the pipeline and receiving offers. They argue it will be politically and diplomatically difficult to influence the 2025 academic year intake—as suggested by this bill—even if the bill is passed in this current parliamentary session.

In addition to this, economically speaking, international student fees account for over a fifth of total university funding. Consequently, universities have come to depend on international student revenue to subsidise their teaching and research efforts, because government funding under both the current and the previous governments has not been there. A cap on international student numbers will place these activities at risk unless additional government funding is found for the sector. Watering down a major source of revenue at a time when universities are being asked to provide more knowledge, skills, opportunities and research will significantly reduce the sector's ability to perform the functions being relied on by the government and all Australians.

The proposed reforms may also have consequences beyond university campuses, as a reduction in export revenue from international education contributes to weaker economic growth, lower employment rates, less investment in essential services and, ultimately, damage to other sectors of the economy. According to Universities Australia, severely curtailing student numbers will see the operating margins of Australia's top-tier institutions quickly compress or flip into small deficits. It's clear that there is more work to do on this legislation to ensure the right settings are in place to bring certainty, stability and growth to this critically important sector.

Consistent with the Universities Accord, under this legislation, tertiary education providers will be able to enrol additional students above their initial international student profile where they establish additional newly built supplies of purpose-built student accommodation. However, it's unrealistic to expect universities to boost the supply of student accommodation on such a short runway, particularly in circumstances where land is simply not available, as is the case in many urban centres. You only need to look as far as the student accommodation debacle unfolding with NIDA and the University of New South Wales to understand that building new accommodation is more difficult than it's being made out to be. Labour shortages to build new housing are already at an all-time low and onerous local council planning rules are a major impediment. This is not to say this measure shouldn't be pursued, but it does need to be better considered, with timelines agreed in consultation with education providers and across all levels of government.

As part of initial announcements expressing the intention to introduce this legislation, the government stated they would 'work closely with the sector to implement this policy and establish transitional arrangements that support the sector to manage this change effectively'. The fact that the sector is already expressing significant concerns about the lack of consultation does not bode well. Attempts to push this legislation through parliament may have significant unintended consequences—to the detriment of our students, culture, diplomacy and productivity. That is why I ask the minister to wait for the completion of the inquiry into this bill by the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment—which is due to report this week on 15 August—so those recommendations can be considered accordingly.

Drilling further into the issues related to accommodation, a number of key stakeholders have raised concerns that the provisions in this bill have been proposed before a suite of well-targeted integrity reforms outlined in last year's migration strategy have even had an opportunity to be implemented. In this way, the bill imposes an additional level of regulation before the effectiveness of the initial reforms are even understood. Surely a better approach would be to allow those early reforms to take time to come into effect before considering additional interventions?

The government has committed to halving net overseas migration to 260,000 by July 2025 and then to 235,000 by 2027, while the opposition has said it would cut the numbers from 260,000 to 160,000 in one year. This would mean that, for the government to reach its target, only 95,000 international students would be allowed into the country each year. This is a drop from pre-pandemic levels of 240,000. Under the coalition's proposed cuts, the international student intake would fall even further, to between—wait for it—10,000 and 15,000 students per year. Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves: are international students being used as an easy target in a political battlefield?

Seeking to link high migration to housing supply and affordability ignores several realities which the Treasurer himself acknowledged recently when he stated that the impact of international students on housing prices is marginal. International students make up just four per cent of the rental market. Rising rents are not attributed to migration, especially by international students, as rents have been rising since 2020, which was during the pandemic. Between 2019 and 2023, the median weekly rent increased by 30 per cent, while student visa arrivals decreased by 13 per cent. The Reserve Bank itself has said the cause of high house prices was not an increase in migration but a shortage of housing supply made worse by the pandemic and rampant inflation driving up construction costs. Given everything I've just said, it's clear the claims that international students are a prime or causal factor in rental stress and housing affordability are just not true. Yet the argument is being used to justify this legislation.

In closing, I suggest the powers contained in this bill are a gross overreach and a dangerous precedent. This legislation poses an unjustifiable risk to the sector's future, not to mention to our productivity and culture. We don't need our government to run what is already Australia's second most profitable export sector, behind mining. We need a government that's prepared to enable the industry to continue to grow, supported by targeted legislation that helps those in the sector meet broader community expectations.

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians understand the power and importance of education. We value what it can do to open the doors of opportunity and change lives. This year's budget demonstrates the Albanese Labor government's commitment to Australian education, with strong investments in building a better and fairer education system from early education and school education through to tertiary education. We also take pride in being a global leader in education exports. Our education sector is valued at $48 billion, making it our fourth largest export. However, international education is not just an economic asset. It fosters friendships and cultural exchange, as students who come to study here often develop a deep affection for our country. They return to their home countries with not only new knowledge and qualifications but also a positive impression of Australia.

Unfortunately, the pandemic severely impacted our international education sector, reducing its value from $40 billion to $22 billion. The students are now returning, but so are unscrupulous operators looking to exploit them. This bill, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, is a critical response to protect the sector and maintain Australia's reputation as a premier education destination. The Albanese Labor government is deeply committed to lifting the quality and assuring the integrity of our international education sector. This commitment is about not just maintaining our reputation on the global stage but also ensuring that every student who comes to Australia receives a world-class education delivered with the highest standards of integrity. The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is a testament to this commitment. It continues the critical work of enhancing our education services, aligning with the policy directions outlined in the draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework, which is currently under consultation with the sector.

The bill draws on the findings of the 2023 interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors. This inquiry solicited input from a wide range of stakeholders, including education agents, regarding integrity concerns within the international education sector. The committee discovered serious cases of active collusion between non-genuine students, agents and education providers. This included instances where education agents steered genuine students towards unsuitable courses that were financially beneficial for both the agent, in terms of commissions, and the provider, in terms of recruitment figures. The inquiry recommended targeted measures to eliminate disreputable providers and to demonstrate Australia's commitment to maintaining the integrity of international education.

The evidence gathered also revealed that the highly competitive student recruitment market puts providers at a disadvantage and encourages the payment of large commissions to agents. The committee found a compelling case to mandate that providers disclose any commission paid to their agents. The committee also learnt that some education providers are complicit in funnelling non-genuine students into ghost schools, where agents collaborate with providers to enrol students in courses they never attend. In some cases, courses are exclusively offered to overseas students, which may be a sign of poor quality. In particular, the inquiry identified persistent and significant issues within the private VET sector. Despite these problems, data shows that VET sector growth has significantly outpaced other sectors. The VET sector's growth rate from December 2019 to December 2023 was 16.6 per cent, compared to a 2.4 per cent growth rate for all enrolments. This report underscores the need for sustainable growth in our international education sector, coupled with stringent quality and integrity measures.

This bill also addresses urgent integrity issues highlighted by the recent Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System, known as the Nixon review, and the review of the migration system. These reviews brought to light significant concerns regarding the exploitation within our visa and education systems. The Nixon review found that some providers were facilitating student movements for the sole purpose of maximising profit rather than in the best interests of the student. Others sought to profit from non-genuine students using student visas to gain access to Australia for work instead of study. In some cases, education agents were even found to be involved in visa exploitation and human trafficking. Allegations of sex trafficking and foreign worker exploitation were also reported, including against overseas students.

In developing its recommendations, the Nixon review relied on findings from Operation Inglenook, which was launched in November 2022 following investigations by 60 Minutes, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald as part of the joint 'Trafficked' series. Operation Inglenook's mandate was to examine the systemic misuse of Australia's visa system for exploitative purposes. As of 31 March 2023, Operation Inglenook had investigated over 175 persons of interest related to the exploitation of the temporary visa program, leading to more than 57 border alerts. Of these, 93 were foreign nationals under scrutiny, and the Department of Home Affairs had flagged 87 high-risk visa applications. By July 2023, the Australian Border Force reported that the investigations had resulted in 22 visa cancellations, the identification of unlawful noncitizens and the denial of immigration clearances. Education agents and international education providers were among those targeted.

While the figures from Operation Inglenook are relatively small compared to the more than 500,000 student visa holders in Australia, the seriousness of the identified cases is very clear. The situation is further complicated by the vulnerabilities faced by international students, including language barriers, financial instability, limited knowledge of Australian law and fear of deportation. Estimating the number of overseas students who are vulnerable to, or victims of, exploitation is challenging due to the hidden and illegal nature of trafficking. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates that, for every victim detected in Australia, there are about four who remain undetected. Factors such as mistrust of authorities, fear of deportation, failure of individuals to recognise themselves as victims and professionals' inability to properly identify victims contribute to the difficulty in assessing the extent of trafficking in Australia.

Likewise, the migration review found clear evidence of systemic exploitation of the visa system involving overseas students. Education agents and complicit education providers were found to have systemically moved students from temporary visa to temporary visa without any realistic hope of meeting requirements to gain permanent residency. Often, private providers in the VET sector would offer lower fees to deliberately incentivise non-genuine students to apply for a student visa solely to gain access to the Australian labour market. These revelations demanded an immediate and robust response.

At the heart of this bill is a comprehensive framework designed to bolster quality and integrity across the sector. Some of these key provisions include the expanding fit and proper considerations. Regulators will now have to consider cross-ownership and control of providers and agents to prevent collusion and exploitation of students. Regulators must also take into account whether a provider is under investigation for a specific event, such as human trafficking, slavery or slavery-like practices. This measure is crucial in ensuring that only those with the highest standards of integrity can operate in this sector.

Another is access to agent performance data. Providers will have greater access to data on agent performance, including information on student transfers and education agent commissions. This transparency is essential in holding agents accountable and ensuring they act in the best interest of students. A further example is that there will be ministerial powers to pause registrations. The Minister for Education will have the authority to pause applications for registering providers or courses for overseas students. This provision allows for swift action in response to any emerging concerns.

In terms of requirements for domestic course delivery, providers will need to deliver courses to domestic students in Australia for at least two consecutive years before offering courses to overseas students. This amendment aims to deter non-genuine providers from entering the international education sector purely to facilitate migration outcomes by requiring that they demonstrate a genuine intention to deliver educational outcomes for students. Providers that are seeking registration to provide English language intensive courses for overseas students or standalone foundation programs will be exempt from the new registration requirement.

Providers that have not delivered courses to overseas students for 12 consecutive months will have their registration automatically cancelled. This measure prevents the misuse of education provider status as a cover for fraudulent activities. Providers being investigated for serious regulatory offences can be automatically suspended from enrolling new international students. This provision ensures that students are not exposed to potential risks while investigations are ongoing.

The bill also sets out a new definition of 'education agent' to prevent people or organisations from falling through the cracks. Education agents are defined by the activities they engage in rather than their relationship to a provider, as many agents do not have formal agreements with specific providers. Notably, permanent officers or employees of a provider are not captured in the definition as they receive a salary and employment benefits from the provider. For example, a permanent employee of a university who works in the university's student recruitment team will not be treated as an education agent.

Sustainable growth in the international education sector is a key objective of this bill. To this end, the legislation grants the minister several powers to ensure that the number and distribution of overseas student enrolments align with government objectives. These powers include setting enrolment limits. The minister can determine limits on overseas student enrolments for specific classes of providers or individual courses. These limits can be expressed in specific numbers or calculated through specific methods, providing flexibility to address varying needs and circumstances. In setting enrolment limits, the Minister for Education will take into account the relevance of the courses to Australia's skills needs and the supply of purpose built student accommodation. To ensure compliance, providers that exceed their enrolment limit will have their registration automatically suspended.

In terms of exemptions and special notices, the minister can exclude certain courses or providers from these limits and issue unique enrolment limits to individual providers as needed. Schools with a smaller number of overseas students are also exempt. Applications for extensions may be made to ensure that genuine providers are not affected or inconvenienced.

The bill allows for the automatic suspension or cancellation of courses that have systemic quality issues, that offer limited value to Australia's critical skill needs or where it is in the public interest to do so. This includes where the provider has not delivered a course to overseas students in a period of 12 consecutive months. This amendment will address integrity issues posed by dormant providers who are using their registration for fraudulent purposes and providers that are not demonstrating a genuine commitment to the delivery of courses to overseas students.

Following the consultation process, the final international education and skills strategic framework will outline the government's approach to implementing these enrolment limits, ensuring that our international education sector continues to grow sustainably and with integrity.

In conclusion, this bill protects and strengthens the right of education and recognises its important personal, societal, economic and intellectual benefits across the world. This bill enhances student rights by implementing safeguards for educational institutions to guarantee the delivery of high-quality education to international students. The bill implements changes to the fit-and-proper test to specifically target those providers and agents who might seek to exploit overseas students and introduces more effective penalties for misconduct, including automatic suspension of registrations when warranted.

The requirement for providers to disclose any commissions paid to education agents for student recruitment, coupled with improved transparency measures, helps identify and address poor agent performance early on. Additionally, these amendments support the right to education by restricting the recruitment of non-genuine students and ensuring that students seeking education in Australia receive top-quality instruction and protection.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is a robust and necessary piece of legislation. It not only addresses current issues within our international education sector but also sets the foundation for sustainable, high-quality growth in the future. By enhancing regulatory oversight, increasing transparency and ensuring rigorous quality standards, this bill will help maintain Australia's reputation as a premier destination for international students. It will ensure that every student who chooses Australia can be confident in receiving an education that is not only world class but delivered with integrity and care. I commend the bill to the House.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Presenting the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 as an education bill is a misrepresentation. This bill reflects the fact that the sector has become an unwilling and unfortunate victim of the major parties' race to the bottom on immigration numbers. It is indeed a very sad day when we see our major political parties competing to damage an important Australian growth sector and export industry.

The education sector drove half of Australia's economic growth in 2023. It contributed $48 billion to our economy. The sector supports 250,000 jobs nationally. But its benefits are not just economic. They include students' cultural and social contributions, their role in our workforce and the soft power imbued in the sector's contribution to our global engagement and to our foreign policy. Let's face it, for years there have been issues with the integrity of the education sector. It has been subverted by low-calibre colleges and by visa shopping and hopping by students who have sought to remain in this country indefinitely. We do need better oversight of agents and providers, and we need better protection of students entering tertiary and secondary overseas student pathways in Australia.

In amending the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, this bill does go some way to improving the integrity of our international education system. However, the bill also proposes a number of other measures that could damage that system: arbitrary enrolment caps for individual courses and providers and extraordinary new powers for the minister to suspend or cancel courses for international students without consultation. It gives the minister the power to cap student numbers down to a course level, with no requirement to consult or provide reasons for limiting international student numbers in any one particular institution or course. There are limited accountability provisions and limited avenues for appeal of these decisions. Institutions will have no right to a merits review. If providers exceed their caps, their registration will be automatically suspended for that course or for the whole institution for the rest of the year.

These consequences of automatic suspension are draconian, and they are profound. Equally, the deadline of 1 September of the preceding year for the allocation of places, which aligns with neither institutions' nor students' timetables, is a confounding aspect of this legislation. The uncertainties around the timing and number of visas for students compound the institutions' difficulties. It's going to be very difficult for providers to know how close they are to their cap for each course in accepting applications. They may well exceed their cap for a single semester, with attrition and completions then bringing numbers down during the year. But the proposed penalties are so severe that providers will likely underenrol so that they can be sure not to exceed their limits. This will lead to stranded places and to total enrolments falling well under caps.

We're told that the minister will exercise these extraordinary powers only in extraordinary circumstances. That might well be true of this minister, but we have no guarantees regarding his successors. The government proposes to give itself powers which would also put education providers at both legal and financial risk, with limited means of recourse. These powers could harm the institutions' investment in quality programs and delivery of assets. The potential impact on capital investment in the industry is clear. The measures fly in the face of the Higher Education Support Act, which defines Australian universities as being autonomous in relation to their academic courses and offerings, how they teach and what research they conduct. The legislation negates four decades of effort by Australian governments to actively develop our international education sector.

Reflecting the excellence of many of our institutions, Australia has become a leading destination for international students. Those numbers increased by less than six per cent a year between 2005 and 2019. Of late, they have overshot targets as students have returned after the pandemic, but let's remember that that rebound was accentuated by the Morrison government's active encouragement of their return, with such policies as unrestricted work rights, fee-free visa applications and expedited visas. Then, in 2022 and 2023, the Albanese government also contributed to the significant increase in international student numbers by clearing the backlog of student visa applications and by giving many international students an additional two years in Australia after they graduate.

Now we find ourselves in a housing crisis with 1.1 per cent rental vacancies in Australia and a shortfall in purpose built student accommodation. This crisis has been decades in the making, and it's directly attributable to the policy failures of successive Liberal and Labor governments to build enough housing in the country. Cue the Albanese government's U-turn on education. It first responded by abruptly decreasing student visa approvals in late 2023. Forty per cent are now being refused—that is unprecedented. The government has twice raised the savings needed by international students to gain visas, and it raised the bar on language requirements. It then increased the non-refundable fees for international student visas from $710 to $1,600—by far the highest in the world. It has halted temporary graduate visas to international students aged over 35 and it has reversed its earlier two-year extension of their visas. What has happened in response? Well, we have already seen a 34 per cent drop in visa applications in the last 12 month in the VET sector, to the lowest level since 2005, and a return to the massive visa backlogs of the last government. Consistent with that race to the bottom, the opposition leader proposes cuts to migration which would see new student enrolments fall to 10,000-15,000 a year. This would do untold damage to our education sector.

The evidence level set up for universities and the unpredictability around processing of visas and visa approvals have already disadvantaged the smaller institutions. Rural and regional universities are now limiting or refusing applications from students from those countries which are deemed at high risk of visa refusal. It's important to remember that capping metropolitan places will not encourage those international students to go to the regions. They have cultural, social and labour-market reasons to stay in the cities. Currently, fewer than 10 per cent of international students opt for regional institutions, despite the lower course costs and migration incentives. Those who do go regional are often attracted by the lower course costs, but that cohort is going to be the cohort that is the hardest hit by the recent increase in visa application fees.

We've already seen, with the Morrison government's extraordinary Job-ready Graduates program, that heavy-handed incentives or punishments have very little impact on student choices. International students are not going to choose to go to the regions; they are simply going choose to study in a different country. The same principle applies to caps on metropolitan universities in favour of regional institutions. The relationship between the housing crisis and international students is weak. International students account for only four per cent of our rental market. They make up less than one per cent of the house population in most local government areas in Australia. Only three per cent of international students live in a detached houses, with 74 per cent living in purpose built student accommodation. Many live in shared accommodation in the unregulated rental sector. Many live far from the institutions at which they study. International students often struggle to find housing because they lack a rental history. They have little protection in homestays and in shared accommodation and they're vulnerable to exploitation. They remain an important workforce in key sectors such as aged care and disability support in Australia. There's a real risk that placement caps will cause labour shortages for local businesses and the care sector.

It makes no sense to propose to limit course numbers based on domestic labour-market demands. Eighty-four per cent of overseas students who come to this country return home after their studies and only 16 per cent decide to stay in Australia, so why limit students' course selection to the skill sets that we require here? We would in fact be better off reserving positions in courses with domestic skill set shortages for Australians, not for international students, particularly for those courses in which there is a constraint on prac placements. The minister shouldn't need to micromanage institutions. Any cap should be set at a provider not a course level, and it should be set at least 18 months in advance of the year in which the students are applying.

We have to remember that students are not migrants. The two should not be conflated. Any government with effective immigration policy can winnow out those graduates who want to stay and who actually do have qualifications which are consistent with our skills deficits. We should remember that international graduates account for one-third of our permanent skilled migrant intake and that those migrants produce a massive economic dividend over their working lifetimes.

Australian universities have experienced a long-term decline in government investment, particularly in infrastructure and in research and development. They rely on tuition fees from full-fee-paying international students to deliver their core function of research, which is the basis of their international ranking and, in turn, the basis on which they attract quality overseas students. It's true that in our universities this has fuelled a culture of revenue, profit and competition in what might well be viewed as an unstable business model. This government says it wants to make things in Australia, but it has provided no additional funding for research in its recent budget. Government grants for the ARC, the NHMRC and the MRFF typically support less than half of the economic cost of supporting funded research. Commonwealth support payments for medicine and veterinary science students leave a shortfall of as much as $10,000 per student. If this government really does want to expand tertiary education and research while reducing our reliance on international students, it is going to have to fund universities better.

Swinburne university in my electorate of Kooyong has already been impacted by the recent changes in the processing of visas. In May and June 2024, the drop in percentage of student visas granted compared to 2023 was as follows: for India there was a decrease of 88 per cent; for Sri Lanka there was a reduction of 93 per cent; for Vietnam there was a reduction of 78 per cent; and for Pakistan there was a reduction of 86 per cent. This is egregious. It's an egregious insult to a venerable institution. Some of Swinburne's courses are going to become non-viable if international student numbers remain impacted in this way. That loss of revenue is going to directly impact research capability and capacity. We're going to see the same pattern repeated at every major institution in this country. The institutions' reputations are already being harmed by this government and its delays in visa assessments. Students are already threatening to move to universities in other countries, and that's already beginning to have an impact on local businesses in the surrounding suburbs, who are being impacted by the reduced numbers of students on campus.

The first goal of our universities should be to educate Australians, not to generate revenue as global businesses. It does make sense for the government to review their business models, but the review should be based on objective data and modelling, and it should be taken in concert with, not in opposition to, educational institutions. It makes sense to defer these changes and for any such radical policy change to be undertaken not by a single minister but by the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission as part of each institution's mission based compact process. I will be moving an amendment to this legislation mandating an independent review of the impact of enrolment limits on providers, on net overseas migration and on the quality of education offered to our local and international students.

Rather than a kneejerk contraction of an important industry in response to a temporary overshoot on immigration, which is of successive governments' making, this country needs mature and nuanced policymaking on housing, on immigration and on education. The Albanese government should not overcompensate as a kneejerk reaction to the populist small-mindedness of the opposition. For the good of all Australians, it needs to have the courage to stay the course on the education sector. If it does not, and if it continues to fail to research adequately, we will see institutions fail, we will see skills and labour shortages worsen, we will see our universities' international rankings tumble, we will see our academic reputation tank, and our economy will suffer. I cannot commend this piece of legislation to the House.

Debate interrupted.