Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 really has two main parts. The first part is streamlining of the regulatory and reporting requirement. The opposition does give its support to that part in itself. However, the second part relates to the government's deregulation agenda in higher education and seeks to remove a range of requirements that affect providers and that were largely introduced, in fact, by Labor when in government in response to the last time we had a major crisis in the international education sector, which followed the collapses of colleges in 2008-2009 in particular. That is the part the opposition has grave concerns about, will move amendments to and will ask the government to reconsider.

When we talk about the international education sector, the international education market, we need to recognise the importance of quality—the importance of safeguarding that quality and having strict standards in relation to that quality. We know that this is an incredibly important part of the Australian economy. I understand it is second to coal and iron ore in terms of how important it is to our economy and worth some $18 billion a year. So, over and above the economic benefits that we know the international education market has, we need to ensure that, we as a country, stand proud in what we deliver and what we provide. Regulation is so important, because we know that there are those out there who, unscrupulously, will take advantage of any loophole they can find and offer dodgy courses which will lead, unfortunately, to the outcomes that we saw during the Howard era.

I want to draw on a little bit of history, though, in talking about the safeguarding of overseas students who come to study in Australia. This idea of a single framework to safeguard overseas students was first introduced by the Hawke government through the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration of Providers and Financial Regulation) Act 1991. It has had quite a reform journey since that time, and quite rightly so, because we are not talking about an education sector that is static or a time period that is static. Regulations must change as circumstances must change, so perhaps the protections that were provided back in 2009 or in 2012 may not be appropriate for international students in 2016. That is why the opposition takes a very constructive approach to looking at what is needed for the international student sector.

This issue, though, of standards and of safeguarding quality, I have to say, is dear to my heart. I am the daughter of someone who migrated to Australia as an international student. It was the attractiveness of the standards and the quality education that Australia provided then, in the 1960s, which made Australia a drawcard for my father, as it did for so many other people, so many other overseas students at that time.

And it has continued to be. Australia has been, certainly, right up there with a number of other countries in the world as a place to come and study and receive a quality education and a quality outcome in that process. But, unfortunately, we have had some hiccups over the last number of years. It is for those reasons that Labor, when we talk about offering international students a pathway for the future, stand very firm on the need to have 'safeguarding quality' as a key to maintaining our high reputation. Why do we do that? Because if we value every human being as equal to ourselves then we would want the same standards provided in higher education to those students coming from overseas to study here as we would want for ourselves. We would not want those students being exploited. We would not want those students to receive a watered-down degree, or have watered-down protections in relation to the fees that they have paid and the educational outcomes that they have then received in return.

That is why this kind of ideological zeal that this government has in relation to deregulation is just so wrong-ended. It is completely wrong-ended. It is fine to want to reduce some red tape. We all understand that. We all understand the importance of streamlining something to make things easier and run more efficiently for students, as well as for those education providers, but, to me, talking about deregulation speaks of weakening those necessary and effective protections for overseas students that are needed now more than ever.

We do not want in this place—and I am sure I speak for all senators—a repeat of what occurred during the Howard era with all of those terrible scams that were put out through those colleges operating at the time, which, as we know, culminated in not only a major economic crisis but also an educational crisis with the international education enrolments collapsing at that time. I think it was, if we look back, an issue of naivety on behalf of the Howard government at that time, which Labor, when it came into government, had to fix up in a fairly major way. Between 2008 and 2011 we saw 54 colleges collapse and 13,000 students affected, of whom only 312 students got refunds from their educational institutions.

Since then, there has also been the saga of Greenwich University, where a scam degree factory operated out of Norfolk Island, which the Howard government allowed to run rampant, I understand, for some four years. It was not only an example of dodgy practice—it was really quite a bizarre situation.

I think that the efforts of all of the reputable providers who strive day in, day out, to maintain high standards, treat students fairly and with dignity are tainted, unfortunately, when there is some dodgy education provider in the mix. That is a shameful thing—when we know that there are so many good education providers out there whose reputations get damaged in the process.

Unfortunately, there have been too many familiar stories in this space, though. It is that concern that I certainly have. I know that Senator Lines also touched on issues to do with the recent sham with contracting arrangements at 7-Eleven. We saw something similar with Australia Post as well recently, with international students being exploited. Even though we are aware of some of these cases—7-Eleven, educational colleges, Australia Post—it raises the question of how many scams or exploitations of international students we are not aware of. This is only what is being reported and what has been found out. We know that there could indeed be a number of reports that go hidden, and in that sense we are left in a cloud of secrecy.

So I do raise the importance of the additional comments that were provided in the Senate committee report on this bill. They went into some detail as to what Labor's position is—the fact that we support the positive elements of this bill but that we want the government to reconsider those provisions that we do not see as reasonable. Anything that is reasonable, of course, we would support, but we have that anxiety, as I mentioned, about the potential consequences of the deregulation agenda of this government.

If I can reiterate the position that Senator Carr spoke of here and that our shadow assistant minister for higher education spoke of in the other place: we are absolutely willing to do what is necessary in relation to reducing red tape, but we do not want to see the watering-down of protections for international students, which would threaten international education, which, as I said earlier, is one of our biggest export industries. So we reserve the right to make those amendments here in the Senate in that regard.

Any harm to Australia's reputation as an education provider will really stem the increasing flow of students into this country and the flow of export income along with them. I am sure the government understands the importance of that, if nothing else—the importance of this market to our bottom line in relation to our economy. We know the freedom that is available to students globally now and that they shop around and look at what is the best and most affordable education on offer to them. Australia may not always be their first port of call, but we want them to make the choice about coming to Australia and being educated here on the basis of quality, on the basis of safety and on the basis that they are not exploited—that they are able to come here and live safely, comfortably, in a supported, multicultural community and come out of it at the end with a really decent quality education and an enjoyable experience as a student whilst here. That is what we would want for our own sons and daughters if they were to travel overseas and study in an institution in another country, and I cannot see why we would want anything less than that for international students coming here to Australia.

On the basis of that, Labor will support in essence the main first part of this bill, but we certainly will be moving amendments in the committee stage and making very clear the reasons why this bill is flawed in its second part. We have shown over the years that we were able to clean up the mess of the Howard government and ensure that we did not get a repeat of the collapse of this educational sector with the closure—the necessary closure, of course—of those colleges and the withdrawal of enrolments. We want to ensure that in this country we have a proud, well-functioning, properly regulated international education market that continues to provide billions of dollars to our economy. The only way we will do that is by ensuring we have good legislation, with good regulations that help make that happen, and a positive attitude to our approach to international students in this country.