Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Because there was more political benefit in picking a fight than helping us to solve the mess they left behind, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth—double-dealing the universities and registered training organisations. They criticise the government for this bill, but they've committed to go much further. Back in May, opposition leader, Mr Dutton, said in his budget-in-reply speech that, if elected, he will reduce annual permanent migration from 185,000 to 140,000. He called the current number of international students 'excessive'.

Senator Henderson said in an interview on talkback radio station 2CC on 2 September:

… what we are concerned about is the social license of our universities to bring in such large numbers of foreign students without having regard for the impact on the learning of all students.

But then at the committee inquiry on 2 October, Senator Henderson described education providers as being 'grossly discriminated against'. So here you are; you can have both things happening at the same time. Push and pull. And her leader, Mr Dutton, told radio station 2GB on 26 September that international students are 'the modern version of boat arrivals'. That kind of inflamed rhetoric and dog whistling has a real impact on people.

International student Raghav Motani spoke to the Guardian about Mr Dutton's comments in an article published on 27 September. He said:

Why are you using these words to describe us? What have we done that's unlawful? … We've not come illegally, we've not jumped borders, why are we framed like this? We're helping the economy, we're putting a lot of money into it. Protect us.

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight universities, also criticised the coalition policies in the Australian Financial Review on 17 May. She said:

At best, the message is 'you are not welcome here', at worst, it is trading off our great history of multiculturalism to play into a political narrative,

We on this side make no apologies for wanting to return migration to pre-pandemic levels. This bill sets up a power to create a cap on the number of international students coming to Australia to study, and the national planning level announced by Minister Clare would mean that 270,000 international students can start a course in 2025. We want regional universities to benefit from hosting international students rather than them being concentrated just in metropolitan universities. We're not engaging in the kind of rhetoric the coalition is spewing because we value our domestic and international students. We want them to have a positive experience in Australia. We want international students to have a genuine cultural exchange, to be paid at least minimum wage if they are working and to not be forced into exploitative accommodation.

But we know this is not always the case. Operation Inglenook, conducted by Border Force and the Australian Federal Police, exposed that genuine education providers were colluding with disreputable agents to facilitate student visas and then funnelling them into criminal activities, including sexual slavery.

Debate interrupted.