I rise today to speak on the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. This bill is yet another example of the Albanese Labor government’s piecemeal approach to policymaking. It also tells us that Labor has badly botched the management of our migration system. This is a complete mess of the government’s own making. The government’s opening of the floodgates to record levels of international students is fuelling the housing crisis and causing unprecedented chaos in the international education sector. The migration and housing crisis is a crisis of the Albanese Labor government’s own making. The situation we find ourselves in is a predictable consequence of successive policy decisions, a lack of strategic direction and a chronic inability to take difficult decisions in the national interest.
Labor’s piecemeal approach does nothing to address the structural issues it has created. The proposed cap in this bill before the parliament will not even touch the sides of this problem. Labor has lost control of our migration system. According to the latest ABS data, net overseas migration is on track to have exceeded one million just in Labor’s first two years, a record level and over 70 per cent more than any other two-year period. Net overseas migration was 925,000 in Labor’s first seven quarters, and the latest available data shows the influx hasn’t slowed. From January to September 2024, there were a further 391,815 net permanent and long-term arrivals, the highest September year-to-date on record despite Labor claiming all year that it was taking steps to get migration back under control.
Since the Albanese government was elected, based on the latest numbers, the number of international students studying in Australia has almost doubled. In May 2022, when the Albanese government was elected, there were 474,493 international students in Australia. By May 2023, this number had increased to 606,812, a growth of 28 per cent. At Senate estimates, just a few weeks ago, the Department of Education admitted that the number of international students has now risen in this country to more than 800,000—to 803,639. Some students are on their eighth, ninth or 10th student visa, using it as a backdoor to stay in Australia to work. As we know, many of these students then seek to leverage protection visas to extend their stay. Under Labor, 661 student visa holders have claimed asylum, with a record of 516 applications in August 2024. Fifteen per cent of all onshore asylum claims under Labor have been made by international students. That’s 15 per cent of all claims.
While we have experienced record migration since Labor came to power, our housing supply isn’t even close to keeping up. That drives up the cost of housing and rents, which further increases inflation as Australians endure so much cost-of-living pain under this incompetent Labor government. The Australian Bureau of Statistics highlighted that just 40,293 homes commenced construction in the second quarter of 2024, for a 12-month total of just 158,752 homes, the weakest year since 2012. In Labor’s first two years, just 350,000 dwellings were completed. Yet Labor is on track to have brought in over a million net overseas migrants. What is Labor’s plan to close this gap and free up desperately needed housing for Australians?
I want to also raise concerns about the cap because Labor talks a lot about the new overseas student commencement cap of 270,000, yet Labor does not talk about the number of exempt student categories, which in fact will drive up that number based on the 2023 figures to more than 400,000 new student commencements. That is because ELICOS is exempt, and in 2023 they had 89,186 commencements. Non-award courses are exempt, and there were 24,380 commencements in 2023. Schools are exempt. There were nearly 8,000 international student commencements in our school system in 2023. Higher-degree-by-research students are exempt, and there were some 6,991 student commencements in this category in 2023. The Pacific and Timor-Leste students are also exempt, and that is another 5,235 commencements based on the 2023 figures. There are several other exempt categories as well. So, based on the 2023 figures, we’re not talking about new commencements of 270,000; we’re talking about new commencements of well in excess of 400,000. So Labor is not telling the Australian people the full story.
We are in the midst of a housing and infrastructure crisis, while migration continues at a record pace on the Albanese government’s watch. The Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Michele Bullock, has acknowledged the impact of migration on housing, for which supply can’t rapidly expand to match supercharged demand, stating:
Yes, new migrants add to demand and there has been that element of it. They have certainly added to pressure on the housing market …
The coalition has maintained the importance of a cap on international students, because of Labor’s immigration chaos, but the Albanese government’s approach is incompetent and riddled with secrecy and uncertainty. We know that this cap is not going to work. Based on the numbers presented by the government, numbers will go up, not down. We cannot support measures which will only serve to compound this crisis of the government’s making. And that is exactly what this bill does.
According to ABS data, in September 2024 there were 47,230 international student arrivals to Australia, an increase of 2,130 students compared with the corresponding month of the previous year. The number of student arrivals in September 2024 was 4.3 per cent higher than the pre-COVID levels in September 2019. In a 12 November 2024 media release, the Institute of Public Affairs stated:
- Net permanent and long-term arrivals from January to September 2024 was 391,850. This was the highest September year-to-date on record, above the previous record set in 2023, which was 390,580.
The federal government is on track to have delivered, they say, ‘an unsustainable migration intake’ of over one million in their first two years—over 70 per cent more, as I say, than in any other previous two-year period. The flood of new arrivals is still continuing. Net permanent and long-term arrivals in the 12 months to September 2024 were also the highest on record, at 449,060 net arrivals. This is five per cent higher than the previous record set in 2023.
So this is an absolute mess—and, I have to say, after the Senate has conducted four separate hearings into this bill, when the government, using smoke and mirrors, had the temerity to announce this without providing any of the detail. And we saw the full impact of this. We know that this student cap that the government has proposed—which includes a whole range of exempt categories which, of course, are not included in the 270,000—is not going to do anything. We know, and we can see from this bill and the government’s decisions to date, that the government is not serious about driving down migration. The government is not serious about fixing its own mess.
The government is not serious about giving more Australians access to affordable housing. During the Senate inquiry into Labor’s immigration mess we heard compelling evidence that 500,000 foreign students have been forced into the private rental market. This is not disputed by the government. Look at the big pressure points in Melbourne and Sydney, in suburbs like Glebe near the University of Sydney where foreign students now number 52 per cent of all students at least, from what we can ascertain. Rents have gone up in Glebe by 17 per cent in just 12 months. In Clayton, which is the home of Monash University, rents have gone up a staggering 20 per cent in 12 months. As I said, we heard compelling evidence about the mismanagement of foreign students and the impact that this has had on housing, particularly in large metropolitan centres. I also wish to reiterate that Labor’s ‘big Australia’ policy has completely failed to safeguard the national interest—including the right to find an affordable home, to see a doctor and to access other essential services.
In contrast to this hapless Prime Minister and this incompetent government, a coalition government would deliver decisive action to reduce migration. By getting the migration policy settings right, the coalition could free up more houses for Australians, reduce congestion on our roads and relieve pressure on existing services. We absolutely cannot support measures which will only serve to compound the immigration and housing crisis of the government’s making, and that’s exactly what this bill does. As I said, in the four Senate hearings held as part of the inquiry into this bill, which we had to force the government to agree to, we heard so many stories from various stakeholders.
We know that this bill is smoke and mirrors. Imagine bringing forward a bill then the government putting forward a proposal to say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to tackle migration.’ We know that with the ministerial discretion inherent in this bill the minister can bring forward the cap that he chooses—which is of course what has occurred—and we know that that student cap is 270,000 plus at least another 100,000 who would come into this country in exempt categories; it may well be more than that. We also know—this has been suggested to me—that the government took an initial cap to cabinet of 250,000 and then apparently was telling stakeholders, ‘Don’t worry; we’ve given you another 20,000 on the cap.’ As I say, this is smoke and mirrors. This demonstrates that this government has completely failed the Australian people. Every government has a responsibility to conduct its migration program in the national interest. This government has failed, and that is why we are opposing this bill.