Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Good, but you probably will not agree with the next bit, which is that I do not think your suggestion that removing temporary protection visas is in any way going to lead to so-called queuejumping; it is not borne out by the facts. I think the phrase ‘queuejumping’ is erroneous in that context.

But back to the bill and the amendment. Just to reinforce the point, I think the issue here is that overseas students pay, and certainly I am not against that, although I think that there is a genuine problem that some universities have become so dependent on income through overseas students that, firstly, they are going to be in serious trouble if that market declines, which it quite probably will do once China really gets up and going with some of its institutions. Universities are going to be in real strife because they have become dependent on it. There is a real problem that, in some respects, we have a degree factory, sausage machine mentality in some universities because they are just so dependent on income from overseas students to fund their overall operations. That is a problem. That is not against overseas students but it is a problem in terms of the overall funding mix for some universities.

I think the obvious reason overseas students who come here pay and invest in themselves or their future is that they are not necessarily going to be staying in Australia—although many of them do through our migration programs. Again, I am not opposed to that, although we could maybe do a bit better by helping some of them settle more effectively. That is the core issue. When Australian residents are studying, it is recognised that this is not just an atomised, individual thing. This is about investment in Australia as well. It is not individual people all investing in themselves; it is also Australia investing. That is why we have that separate approach for Australian students.

But it is still a fact that entry mechanisms are never going to be perfect. There is always going to be a need to continually review them. But when a person’s bank balance makes the difference between whether or not they get in, rather than their academic ability, you are getting into a bigger problem. That should not have anything to do with whether or not they make a good doctor or engineer either. It should be based on merit. When that becomes secondary to bank balance, we have a big problem and a distorting effect. That is leaving aside the core problem, which is that, even if you accept some of these things in principle, it is a matter of degree—and now you have your degrees costing as much as they do. This is in direct contradiction to the Prime Minister’s promise of not very long ago that we would not see $100,000 degrees in Australia. We have that and more now, and that clearly is a barrier to many people.