Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This bill to cap international students is the very definition of reckless policy. This bill, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, is migration policy disguised as an education bill. It is a poorly thought through and chaotic plan to cap international student numbers. There was little or no consultation with the sector on the methodology which underpins this bill. It shamefully conflates the presence of international students with the housing crisis that they did not cause, it allows for unprecedented ministerial overreach and intervention, it harms international students and it damages Australia's reputation as a destination for international students. It will result in thousands of job losses, and it is dramatically bad for the economy. Capping international student numbers has little to do with quality or integrity. There is absolutely no redeeming feature in these international student caps. If you needed a manual on how not to do policy, you have it right here in this bill, courtesy of the Albanese Labor government and Minister Clare.

There is so much that needs to be done to pull the higher education sector out of the crisis that it has been in for years. The Labor government could have chosen to fully fund universities and TAFEs and ensure they provide secure jobs with fair pay and the best conditions for learning and teaching, but no. The Labor government could have chosen to provide proper funding for research, but no. The Labor government could wipe all student debt and make uni and TAFE free, but no. They won't even legislate to wipe the promised 20 per cent of student debt until after the election, in the hope of harvesting some votes. The Labor government could have chosen right now, when they are in government, to scrap the rotten Job-ready Graduates Package's massive fee hikes, which have piled so much debt onto students, but no. They did none of that. They did none of what is needed—what staff and students want and what universities need. Here they are, charging ahead with international student caps which no-one wants and which will be a disaster.

Let's be clear: what we have here is purely and simply migration policy disguised as an education policy. This is a politically self-interested move to win a race to the bottom with Mr Dutton's coalition on migration, and the Albanese government is willing to throw the whole tertiary education sector under the bus to win this racist race. Shame on you! International students have long been used as cash cows to prop up the sector, and now they are being used as scapegoats for the government's own policy failures. This is absolutely disgraceful.

It seems, though, that Labor's reckless and chaotic international student caps are finally dead in the water, as they should be. From day one, the Greens have been vocal in our opposition to these student caps, for all the reasons that I just articulated. Literally everyone except Labor was opposed to international student caps as well, because we know they will decimate the sector, harm international students, harm our reputation and result in massive job and economic losses.

Do you know why we know that these caps are a migration policy and not an education policy? Because it was confirmed when Minister Clare wrote to universities in September trying to strongarm them into submission and into agreeing with the caps to support the government's migration targets. The education minister is holding ministerial direction 107 over the heads of education providers, as if his government isn't responsible for that reckless ministerial direction in the first place. That ministerial direction is cruel, misleading and highly damaging to the sector. Now that Labor have egg on their faces, when this bill will not be supported in this chamber, the next thing they should do is also scrap the damaging ministerial direction 107 immediately so the higher education sector has some path forward to be able to survive.

In damning evidence, Luke Sheehy of Universities Australia described the international student caps in this bill as a 'political smokescreen' that is being used by the government 'to gain an upper hand in a battle over migration ahead of the next election', while Group of Eight CEO Vicki Thomson reported:

Migration is shaping up as a key battlefront in the lead-up to the federal election, and the university sector is shaping up to be the fall guy, unfairly and unjustifiably so.

The government is trying to crush the higher education sector in a bid to look tough on borders in the months before the federal election. International education and international students in the higher education sector are becoming collateral damage as a result of this terrible policy. The calls for the government to engage in proper consultation with the sector have been loud and unanimous but have gone unanswered by this government. They did make a complete mockery of the inquiry process, often releasing key information the day after hearings had taken place and failing to produce any modelling on the impacts of these caps. Throughout the inquiry that involved four days of public hearings and almost 200 submissions, no-one from the government was able to point to any evidence that these caps are necessary to ensure quality and integrity in the international education sector. In fact, the government claimed these caps are about housing, about skills shortages, about integrity and quality, but none of these policy aims are reflected or achieved in the formulas that have been developed to create these caps. The absence of these purported policy outcomes shows how irrational and flawed this whole messy dog's breakfast is. The entire process has been rushed, opaque, chaotic and confusing.

In relation to the allocation of caps across the sector, with the exception of TAFE institutes, for every other provider—public universities, private universities, non-university higher education providers and private VET providers—there is no consistency in how caps have been allocated, even within those individual groups of providers. Many errors were identified in the allocation of caps and it is near impossible to see how these errors can be rectified in any way, shape or form prior to the government's proposed date of 1 January next year.

Following decades of underfunding by successive Labor and Liberal governments, universities have become disproportionately reliant on international student revenue and now the government is proposing to suddenly turn off that tap, with no-one having any idea of what student numbers could look like beyond 2025, and nothing on the table from the government to provide more funding to universities. Funds from exorbitant international student fees are used in universities to cross subsidise research and to support domestic students. This is a problem in and of itself. But cutting off this funding will also become a huge problem immediately as the revenues drop. We have already seen in just the last some weeks that universities have been announcing more than a thousand job cuts, with many citing international student caps as a contributing factor. Incredibly, other estimates put job losses in the tens of thousands, and the sole response from the government is that 'from a macroeconomic perspective, Treasury does not expect any job losses as a result of this bill'. Even more incredibly, no modelling has been provided for these claims, and no-one can assume that no detailed modelling was undertaken to determine specific impacts on the sector or on the economy.

Many universities are facing dire circumstances with the government already decimating international education for many providers through ministerial direction 107. I keep coming back to this because this is a horrific ministerial direction that needs to be scrapped right now. A number of smaller private providers gave evidence that the imposition of the caps would be catastrophic for the entire industry. Dr Ant Bagshaw, executive director of the Australian Technology Network of Universities, reported that the six universities he represents have lost over half a billion dollars in 2024 as a result of ministerial direction 107. Mr Paul Harris, executive director of Innovative Research University, similarly reported the disproportionate and unfair impact of the direction on the universities that he represents.

Furthermore, this bill is an attack on the fundamental principles of university independence and student choice. On the one hand, although not reflected at all in the methodology for 2025, the government has indicated that these caps will be used to steer international students towards areas of skills shortages in Australia. But then, on the other hand, universities' whose international student numbers will be capped quite drastically teach the courses which actually address the skills shortages. It undermines the government's own argument. For example, despite educating a significant number of international students that go on to work in Western Sydney's overburdened hospitals, Western Sydney University is facing a cut of up to 18 per cent in their student numbers for next year. Similarly, the Australian Catholic University is the largest educator of teachers and nurses in the country, and they are facing a 53 per cent reduction in international students from 2024 to 2025. This whole thing makes zero sense.

Canada implemented a cap on international students, and we know the results have been pretty disastrous and damning, with international student numbers falling far below the caps that have been set as students seek more welcoming options for study. Across the four days of hearings, witnesses explicitly, again and again, raised concerns about the serious damage this bill will do to Australia's reputation as a destination for international students. This damage has already started. Alec Webb, CEO of Regional Universities Network, described the government's changes as an act of economic and reputational self-sabotage. With high levels of visa delays and refusals, $1,600 visa application fees and caps that mean, even with an offer, you may not be guaranteed a place, it is clear that many students will no longer even consider studying in Australia.

Shamefully, capping international student numbers under the government's plan is fundamentally flawed in that it relies on a false narrative that international students are the cause of Australia's current housing crisis. Of serious concern and often lost in the debate is the impact of these caps on the students themselves. International students have long been exploited as cash cows to prop up university budgets in the absence of government funding, and now they are being scapegoated by the policy failures of both the coalition and the Labor governments. The harm this causes to international students and migrants cannot be overstated. In addition to the harm caused to the international students themselves, this rhetoric fails to account for the vibrancy, culture and diversity that international students bring to our campuses and communities.

Universities and private providers alike have been clear that the government's irrational international student caps will destroy tertiary education. It is clear that this bill by the Labor government puts politics before policy, despite all the evidence provided of the flaws, gaping holes and inconsistencies, the lack of consultation and the damage this policy will do. The government is pushing ahead with strangling the higher education sector in this disgraceful attempt to achieve migration outcomes, which has absolutely zero to do with international education.

On the final day of hearing, higher education expert Claire Field told the committee that it would be wrong to go ahead, and I couldn't agree more. Now Labor, hopefully, cannot go ahead. We pushed hard, and this flawed policy will, hopefully, never see the light of day. And I hope that there is a lesson here for Labor that they will learn. They must go back to the drawing board and come back with a plan to fully fund universities for research, for learning and for teaching. They must tackle insecure work and rampant casualisation at universities. They must tackle the corporatisation of universities, wipe student debt and make uni and TAFE free. These are the priorities—not some ridiculous international student caps, which, hopefully, are now dead in the water, as they should be.