Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister representing the Minister for Education, Senator Watt, belled the cat in the Senate yesterday, when he said:

… we have seen a massive growth in international education over the last couple of years in Australia, and that is putting unsustainable pressure on the amount of migration that we are receiving in this country at a time when people are experiencing cost-of-living pressures and very real housing pressures.

The government's failure to manage Australia's international education sector with the requisite certainty and fairness is causing economic harm to Australian universities, private higher education providers, English language course providers and the vocational education and training, or VET, sector. After opening the floodgates to international students, the government covertly implemented policies which discriminated against regional and smaller universities and private higher education and VET providers by targeting the processing of student visa applications from these institutions. While the opposition won't be supporting the Greens disallowance motion, we continue to raise serious concerns about the damage the government is causing to Australia's international education sector. This is an immigration mess of the government's own making.