Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on this matter of urgency moved by Senator McKim, and on one thing we agree: the value of Australia's international education sector. It is a vital part of our economy, and international students are a valuable part of our communities. That's why it's important that we progress reforms that strengthen the sector's integrity and sustainability. Such reforms will ensure that students have a brilliant experience in Australia and go on to be proud ambassadors for our country and our values when they return home. I want to make it absolutely clear that our government is committed to this sector and its future. That's why, subject to the passage of legislation which is currently before the Senate, the government will set a national planning level for new overseas student commencements of 270,000 for 2025, divided between the higher education and the VET sectors.

Since the pandemic, international enrolment numbers have surged more strongly than anyone expected and, unfortunately, some of these enrolments are people who seek to work in Australia, not study. That needs to happen through the appropriate pathways. We have also clearly seen a resurgence of unscrupulous operators who are focused on profit over delivering quality education. That leads to bad outcomes for students—students whom we want to have an amazing and transformative experience in our education system; students whom, as I said, we want to return to their countries with nothing but positivity and share with others about their time in Australia and the education that they received here. That's why the government has taken these measures to deliver sustainable growth for our international education system into the future.

This policy will ensure that students coming to Australia can be confident that they are investing in a high-quality education and study experience. Since the pandemic we have seen that the previous, unmanaged system presented unacceptable risks to the quality of international education received by students and that it would ultimately undermine the strength of our sector and its reputation internationally. The government has released indicative international student profiles, using a transparent formula that has been designed to ensure that regional universities, in particular, whose enrolments have generally not returned to prepandemic levels, have room to recover from the pandemic and continue to grow.

These proposals do not decimate the sector, as this motion claims. They do not cut enrolments by 90 per cent or any of the other misleading numbers that members of this chamber have claimed. The fact is that, overall, public universities will be able to take roughly the same number of new students next year as they did last year. For publicly funded universities, our government's approach will result in around 145,000 new overseas student commencements in 2025, which is close to last year's number.