Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

This bill is the third in a series of bills to come before the House to amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 in response to the recommendations of a review of the act conducted in 2004. The ESOS Act 2000 was introduced to provide consumer protection to overseas students studying in Australia and to protect Australia’s international reputation as a provider of quality education services.

The government has an interest in ensuring the strength of the education services industry, which is the fourth most valuable export industry in Australia behind iron ore, coal and tourism. It has grown into a major export industry for Australia and now contributes more than $10 billion to the economy annually. Our private and public schools, intensive language centres, vocational and educational training bodies, private colleges and universities have increased overseas enrolments by more than 40 per cent to record numbers of over 350,000 students.

The ALP has been a strong supporter of the international education services sector since the Hawke Labor government first opened our universities to foreign students in the 1980s. It is with this 20-year history of initiating and supporting the Australian education export industry that Labor gives its support to the bill before us today. It is in that same spirit of support for the industry and concern for its ongoing viability and success that I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name which highlights some of the problems in the sector that Labor believes the government has ignored for too long and that threaten the value of an Australian education for international students and our reputation as a quality provider of education services:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that while there is a need to update the requirements for the provision of education to overseas students, it condemns the Government for poor management of the international education industry, including:

(1)

the threat to quality in Australia’s higher education sector as a result of the Government’s cuts to, and lack of investment in Universities, leading to undue reliance by the higher education sector on revenue from international student fees; and

(2)

a lack of action taken in response to recent examples of questionable activity in the overseas student area in both the University and Vocational Education and Training sectors”.

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