Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKim's motion talks about the government's disregard and contempt for international students. Let's be honest: it's to keep foreign students' numbers uncapped. This motion shows the Greens' disregard and contempt for Australian families experiencing homelessness and mortgage stress. As always, the Greens are putting the interests of foreigners before the interests of the Australian people and Australian university students.

There were more than 810,000 international student enrolments in Australian universities as of May this year. That's more than the entire population of Tasmania and the Northern Territory combined. These same universities, which make billions of dollars a year from international education, make insufficient provision to house all these students. Last year it was reported that international students took up about 70 per cent of available rental accommodation in Australia. That's an appalling figure when so many Australian people are struggling with rental vacancy rates in mainland capital cities that have fallen to under one per cent. International students are also affecting the quality of education for Australian students, who are being left behind. So many of them cannot speak English and sit in lectures and seminars with their phones translating for them or get lectures in Mandarin.

The Greens must learn a simple fact: record immigration and international student numbers are hurting this country while the Greens advocate for more immigration, more refugees and, now, more international students. Australia owes nothing to foreigners that it does not first owe to Australian citizens. In fact, our universities, built and funded by Australian taxpayers, cost approximately $20 billion to $25 billion a year, and that includes student loans. They are classified as charities and don't pay tax. We have the bull by the horns if we now believe foreign students are more important than Aussies when it comes to educational and living standards. As for Senator McKim, he is trying to use foreign students to prop up the University of Tasmania, regardless of the impact on housing, while rents in Tasmania have doubled and vacancy rates in Hobart have fallen to less than 1½ per cent.