ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024

The coalition will not be opposing the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, but I do suggest that the government support the very reasonable and thought-out amendment put forward by the member for Bradfield. I agree with the member for Solomon when he talks about how important international education is to regional universities and regional communities per se.

Recently I have been on a fact-finding tour—an inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors, particularly post COVID, appreciating the fact that we are not out of the woods when it comes to COVID-19 by any stretch of the imagination. People are still being afflicted with COVID and passing away from COVID, but the conditions have changed. The economy is back open. This inquiry has looked into how the situation is being handled with Australia's tourism and tertiary education factors and sectors in mind. I participated with the chair, Labor's Senator Deb O'Neill from New South Wales, in hearings in Sydney, the Gold Coast, Orange, Cairns, Broome, Fremantle, Great Ocean Road, Ballarat and Adelaide. They were very good hearings, and I commend those who gave evidence to those hearings, particularly the hearing on 2 March last year in Sydney.

I just want to place on the record what was said by students who would know because they are experiencing it firsthand. Inuli Subasinghe, who studies at UNSW, told the inquiry:

The cost of rent has been at an all-time high recently and, with a lot more international students coming into the country, it has been difficult for students to find accommodation. A lot of students are paying insanely high prices right now; they are only staying in a place for three months and then have to move again. So it has been difficult. For university courses we pay a really high amount, but I do not think we get the support that we need for the courses.

She was very frank and very raw. I thank her for her honesty. They are sentiments which are being echoed right throughout the university sector, not just by visiting students but by many students who are Australians who reside in this country.

Katja Strehle, a fourth-year PhD student in sociology from Western Sydney University, backed up those comments. I really liked what she said. She said:

I personally, for example, would like to give back to the community, because there has been a lot of economic investment in me and my research. I would not like to just leave Australia without giving back.

I think those sentiments are admirable. I think they are reflected in many students who come to Australia to learn. They do want to contribute. They do, as Katja has said, want to give back. I thank the students who gave evidence at that inquiry for being so upfront.

The inquiry heard some alarming reports about the unavailability and the lack of accommodation, both in capital cities and in regional areas. When I discussed this bill with the government relations officer at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga, Samantha Beresford, she was concerned, as she has a right to be. We want our universities—and, from my own point of view, our regional universities—to be the best they can be.

I am concerned that this Labor federal government has mismanaged Australia's immigration system. It has led to more than double the number of international students in Australia, from 336,845 in March 2022, a couple of months prior to the election of the Albanese government, to a peak of 713,144 in February 2024. These are figures from six months ago. Goodness knows what they are now. Under Labor, there are 80,000 student visa holders who are on to their third student visa or more. Some are on an eighth, ninth or 10th student visa, as a backdoor way to stay in Australia to work.  I'm sure the member for Barker would agree with me, coming from a regional area, that there are so many job vacancies in regional Australia at the moment, not just in agriculture but in all areas of endeavour, blue collar and white collar, that cannot be filled. And, yes, our international students and our residential students are filling the void in many cases. But the accommodation crisis is real. It's hurting regional communities, particularly regional communities where there are universities.

We know that education is one of the big pillars that provides generous benefits to our balance of payments. If we're inviting students to our country, we need to be able to accommodate those students properly. The government's failure to manage Australia's international education sector with requisite certainty and fairness—and I have to say that this came out from some of the students who gave evidence at that inquiry—is causing economic harm to Australian universities, private higher education providers, English language course providers and the vocation, education and training or VET sector. The member for Bruce made some comments about this, and I don't disagree with them as far as some providers abusing the privilege of having international students. I'll leave that for another day. I listened to the member for Solomon when he talked about rejigging the English test and other parameters. Could you just imagine what those opposite would have said had we done the same in government? There would have been cries of discrimination and cries of, 'What are you doing to our education sector?' But we don't hear any of that now.

We won't be opposing this legislation, but the government's narrative in the remarkable growth in the international student numbers—on its watch, mind you—has been driven by the Minister for Education describing it as 'shonks and crooks'. That's what he contended in his second reading speech to this bill. Like the member for Bruce and, to a degree, the education minister, the member for Blaxland, I know that some international students have been lured here by providers just trying to make a fast buck and have used the various visa schemes to do just that. However, visa arrangements under this government are out of control.

Interestingly, in the Howard years, overall, not just in education, there were about 100,000 people migrating to Australia. That number was exceeded this January and February, in those individual months alone. There were more people who came to Australia in January and February than there were in the entire year in the Howard era. Eventually, we're going to have to say, 'Enough'; we're going to have to draw a line. This Labor government doesn't seem to have the capacity to do that.

The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill introduces:

… new ministerial powers for the Minister for Education to set caps on the number of international students who can study in Australia at any one time—not just for each educational institution but for each campus location and course.

A bit has been said about the regions. The Regional Universities Network, or RUN, is a national collaborative group of seven regional Australian universities: Charles Sturt University, CQUniversity Australia, Federation University Australia, Southern Cross University, the University of New England, the University of Southern Queensland and the University of the Sunshine Coast. It's really interesting to hear what RUN has had to say about this bill. The group has actually said it:

… tends to leave the social missions of RUN universities more exposed to unintended consequences. It is RUN's concern that the universities most likely impacted by the changes introduced … will be those regionally-based institutions who not only host the sector's highest concentrations of domestic equity enrolments, but whose ongoing viability in regional areas is directly linked to international enrolments at both regional and metropolitan campuses.

RUN universities have witnessed the highest proportional declines in international student revenue since COVID, the largest reduction in international student enrolments, the slowest post-COVID recovery in international students, and are among the least able public institutions to absorb any further reductions in international student revenue.

That's what RUN says.

It continues:

RUN universities enrol just 4 per cent of all international students studying at Australian universities …

I accept that, but they are still an important component of those regional campuses. They further state:

Between 2019 to 2022, RUN universities saw a 61 per cent reduction in international student revenue linked to the pandemic, compared to the sector average of just a 16 per cent reduction during the same period.

They're hurting, and they say:

However, this must be supported by a visa regime that positively discriminates towards regional study/settlement, to assist the growth of international students at regional campuses.

They say:

RUN believes there should be no capped impediment, by location, provider, or course—for international students enrolling at regional universities.

I would contend that this government doesn't really have an ear to what's important in regional communities, and you see that right across the spectrum. You see that right across the board, and it wouldn't matter whether it's transport or agriculture. It doesn't matter that it's education in this instance.

It was regional areas which, like most times, kept this nation going during COVID, when many city folk were pulling up the doona over their heads and feeling sorry for themselves because we had a global pandemic. It was our farmers and our miners who were getting out and helping to put food and fibre on tables and backs, who were helping dig things up out of the ground to help our exports and who kept this country going. When you get legislation with the city-centric nonsense that we so often hear spouted by members opposite in legislation and interviews and all the rest, it makes it hard to stomach. It truly does. I can see the member for Barker nodding because he knows exactly that what I am saying is true.

Again, RUN says:

The new student accommodation requirements of the proposed managed growth policy, if applied to regional higher education providers, would also place disproportionate burdens upon regional universities and regional communities.

Firstly, regional universities have less financial capacity and/or borrowing capacity to take on major capital expenditure projects, compared to metropolitan universities who can leverage robust balance sheets derived from scaled operations in dense urban markets.

Secondly, the costs of construction, maintenance, equipment, and supply chains are higher in regional Australia.

They ought not be, but they are. That's why I commend the amendments to this bill that have been put forward by the member for Bradfield. We need to make sure that our regional universities are as strong as can be.