Topics: Labor’s cap on international students
Chris O’Keefe: Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, has announced that he’ll be implementing a cap on the number of international university students allowed into Australia. So starting next year, there will be a cap of 270,000. Still odd isn’t it? 270,000. That’s a drop of about 20,000 enrolments compared to last year. It’s mucking around at the sides, 20,000? Look, it’s not a blanket rule for everyone.So some universities will be allowed to enrol more international students. Some, however, including the Group of Eight, Sydney University, University of New South Wales and the like will be told to enrol fewer. So here’s the minister making the announcement:
Jason Clare: We’re writing to universities today, setting out their individual levels. All up, what I’m telling you is, for universities, their numbers next year will be roughly the same as what they were last year. For some universities, some big universities, it’ll be lower than it was last year. For some of the smaller universities , some of the universities that have been hit hard by Ministerial Direction 107, that will be higher next year than it is this year. So its designed to build a better and a fairer system. The fact is, the universities I mentioned like Newcastle, like Wollongong, like Griffith, like Charles Darwin, like Latrobe, like the University of Tasmania, they’re the sort of universities that have borne the brunt of Ministerial Direction 107. They’re the sort of universities that will benefit from building a better and a fairer way of setting levels for universities and international students.
Chris O’Keefe: That’s Jason Clare, the education minister. So basically some will have more, some will have less. But overall, 20,000 a year. 20,000 a year the cut will be. Well, it’s not much. Not many at all. Sarah Henderson is the shadow education minister. She’s on the line for us. Sarah, thanks so much.
Senator Henderson: Chris. Good afternoon.
Chris O’Keefe: I feel like this is a bit ho-hum after all the talking up of they were doing.
Senator Henderson: Well, Chris, firstly, today’s announcement on the student caps is absolutely the result of Labor’s immigration chaos, which of course has placed unprecedented cost of living and housing pressures on Australians. We’ve seen over the last two years, Chris, a number of foreign students coming into Australia has more than doubled. There’s been gross mismanagement of this sector. This is a mess of Labor’s own making and we are yet to ascertain what this actually means in terms of impact on net migration. What we do know, we heard yesterday in the Senate inquiry, is that 500,000 international students have been forced into the private rental market. And, for anyone who’s tried to rent a house in Sydney or inner Melbourne, where, of course, there are thousands upon thousands of foreign students and we know what a nightmare that has become.
Chris O’Keefe: I just wonder though, 20,000, a cut from last year and I know education’s a big export and the like, but ultimately we’re hearing time and time again here, Sarah, and I’ve had people who work at universities contact this program, telling me that students are coming in from overseas, they’re spending $50,000 a year full-fee to be enrolled in a course. The expectation is that they are being passed because they’re effectively purchasing a degree. Now that he’s lowering the standards of the education that they’re receiving and also they’re being treated like customers, not like students.
Senator Henderson: Well, Chris, I have raised continuing concerns about standards at our universities. There’s certainly been declining student satisfaction. So many students are not getting out of their degrees what they should. There’s also concern about declining academic standards. And I think that you’ve raised a very big concern if universities are dropping their standards to keep hold of international students, that is a real worry. I have to say, I mean, the minister talked and we just heard that grab about looking after the regional unis, Ministerial Direction 107 completely smashed the regional…
Chris O’Keefe: Can you explain that to us?
Senator Henderson: So what the government did, and this is the Albanese government, they implemented these arbitrary rules, which meant that the big end of town, the Group of Eight universities, that’s the University of Sydney, UNSW, University of Melbourne, ANU and the like, they’ve actually had a 16 per cent increase in their visa approvals. They were bringing in predominantly Chinese students which are deemed to be lower risk students. So international students going into other universities, they were having their visa approvals absolutely decimated and that has had an enormous financial consequence. Some universities are saying in the regions they are on their knees, they may not survive. So for the minister to characterise this as a win for regional unis is frankly, an absolute joke. We have just seen so much chaos. And now, because the rivers of gold, I mean, University of Sydney basically reaped $1.5 billion out of international students just last year. There’s more than 33,000 foreign students at the uni. There’s 50 per cent of the entire student population this was going sort of unfettered.
Chris O’Keefe: This isn’t new, Sarah. This happened all under your watch too, like, talk about rivers of gold. You guys were swimming in the rivers of gold, just like the Labor Party is.
Senator Henderson: Well, that’s that’s actually not the case, Chris. We’ve actually seen a very significant increase now.
Chris O’Keefe: So it’s not the case in 2022, then immigration minister, Alex Hawke, eliminated visa application fees and allowed unrestricted work rights for students? That wasn’t the case, that was a lie was it?
Senator Henderson: No, to be absolutely fair, there has been an increase in the last 20 or 25 years in international students and that has happened under both governments. But we have never seen the chaos, Chris, that we’ve seen now where the number of foreign students has more than doubled. I mean, Sydney Uni…
Chris O’Keefe: I think you’re all in on it, Sarah. You know, you are, because you sit there with the vice chancellors, whether it’s Labor or Liberal, the Greens love it too. You sit there and you have your cups of tea and they’re making a fortune. I’m not like talking about you personally but I’m talking about the institutions, the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Labor Party. It’s all the same stuff.
Senator Henderson: We are putting the blowtorch to the universities. We are very concerned about the quality….
Chris O’Keefe: Well it’s no good doing it in opposition?
Senator Henderson: Well, let me tell you, I hope to be the next minister for education and what I will be doing is ensuring that we have proper standards at our universities, that we have proper value for degrees. If students are going to go to university they need to make sure that they’re going to get value out of their degrees. And we know that a third of students currently going to university are not getting value. They’re getting a very poor education experience. And that’s why we’ve said we will get back to basics, we will get back to the fundamentals of ensuring that when a student goes either to a school or to a university, they will get the best possible education. And that will only happen under a Liberal government.
Chris O’Keefe: Well, we’ll wait and see, I don’t hold out hope because you’re talking of the rivers of gold, plenty of gold in there and everyone’s happy to get the budgies out and jump straight in. Sarah, I appreciate your coming on.
Senator Henderson: Yeah, Chris, just to clarify though, the rivers of gold are flowing into the universities, they’re not flowing into government coffers. And I think what’s happened as a result, is that Australian students are paying a price and I’ve raised continuing concerns about that including a young man who left first year commerce at Melbourne Uni because he was in a tutorial where everyone was speaking Mandarin. Now that’s not good enough. How can you learn?
Chris O’Keefe: This has been going on forever. Been going on forever and it happened when I went to university 20 years ago. So, you know, forgive me if I’m cynical about it all but I’ve run out of time. Thanks for coming on.
Senator Henderson: Great to talk to you. Thanks so much, Chris.