Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise and speak to this pretty wide-ranging urgency motion today. I understand that the mover of the motion and others seek to talk about a bill that's before the Senate and the broader approach by the government to managing student immigration and international students and what impact that might have on resources and housing in other parts of the country. It's a noble approach. I understand the mover of the motion seeks to implement a plan to have better policy outcomes, to have something written down that says how we will go about balancing ensuring that we have enough housing and resources and services for people but also a sustainable education system. I understand that, but the problem with that is that the government has done this work. The government has done the reviews and the work required to understand what is going on in our international education system. We started this work very early on, particularly after COVID, where it was really evident that we needed to understand what was happening in Australia's education system, particularly how international education was impacting our education system.

We know that integrity concerns in Australia's international education system and student visa program have been identified in three recent reviews that the government commissioned and has been looking at. This includes the review of the migration system, which is referred to as the Parkinson review, a large-scale review that showed that the immigration system under the previous government was a complete and utter mess. It also includes the review that we did, the rapid review into the exploitation of Australia's visa system. That was the Nixon review. Underlying a lot of this work that we're doing is to make sure that people that come over here to study and are on student visas are not exploited when they are here. Those reviews found that there was a lot of work to do and that we needed to get integrity back into the system. The preliminary report from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors is also being considered by the government.

So the work is there, and we are considering those recommendations. In implementing this important work, what we are seeking to do as a government is welcome international students but also update the system to ensure that the sustainability and integrity of the sector is ensured. We need to do this because we need to make sure that our international partners can continue to have confidence in the quality of the education and experience that international students receive when choosing an Australian provider. It's a really important step forward.

And we need to do this not for the bare political points that are being made by those opposite. On the one hand, they say that students are contributing to the housing crisis, but they didn't do anything about the housing crisis for 10 years. Somehow that's the problem, but they also don't want to do anything to fix it. If you're genuinely concerned about this sector and how we can build integrity back in, then the ESOS bill before the Senate is dealing with those issues.

I know that there are universities in big cities that have for a long time relied on international students, and one thing that I am genuinely really pleased to see is that, through this process, we are going to get more of those international students into regional universities. I know that there have been committee hearings. You said it's being rushed, but we've had consultation for a long time, and it's been with the committee since May. That's not as rushed as most Senate bills go. It's really important for the people that I represent that regional universities don't go backwards, and this bill and the work that is being done ensure that that will be the case. That is the direct feedback that I had last week from regional universities in my home town of Cairns. They want to see this bill passed because it will give them the certainty that they need. They want to move on and have integrity in the system for international students.

I understand there are probably big universities in big cities that rely on international students, but, for the regional communities and regional universities, this is incredibly important. We know that the government are committed to supporting sustainable growth in the international education sector, and that is exactly what we are seeking to do by delivering on these reviews and implementing this forward.