Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to voice my support for the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment (Tuition Protection Service and Other Measures) Bill 2011 and related legislation. I thank the member for McPherson for her contribution. We have seen a growing number of students from overseas enrol in Australian universities. Australia is home to 460,000 overseas students, including 126,000 from China and nearly 70,000 from India. Many students also come from South Korea, from Indonesia, from Malaysia, from Thailand and, as mentioned by the previous speaker, there is an emerging South American market. In fact, international students here come from more than 190 countries. It is a vote of confidence in our wonderful Australian universities and proof that an Australian degree is highly regarded all around the world.

Australia is a very attractive place to study—great people, great climate—I am sure you would agree, Deputy Speaker Slipper, that that is the case in Queensland at least—and a very welcoming multicultural society. Young people want to come to Australia: they want to be educated in Australia and they want to experience Australian culture. It is estimated that overseas students and their families spend more than $14 billion a year in Australia. Access Economics estimate that their presence creates an extra $12.6 billion in goods, in services and in jobs. That means, in all, overseas students contribute more than $26 billion to our economy, making education our third biggest export. When we see coal trains going through Brisbane and in North Queensland, we need to think of our overseas students in similar terms—they are valuable commodities and it is our job to protect them.

Their contribution is not just economic or financial; overseas students contribute to the broad tapestry of Australian multiculturalism, and they also ensure that there is a diversity of thought in our universities and in the broader community. Griffith University's Nathan campus, in my electorate, is home to nearly 4,000 international students. They have an even stronger presence on the Gold Coast and in Logan. The Gold Coast campus particularly caters for international students for some of the reasons the member for McPherson detailed, including the sand, the sunshine and the healthy lifestyle. Obviously our community is all the richer and stronger for having these international students in our presence.

Of course, such a rapidly growing sector does create challenges, and the Labor government has responded in recent years to improve the integrity of the sector. There are other problems associated with this rapidly growing sector. At Griffith University in my electorate there are community consultation meetings, which I try to attend. These meetings are all about the university engaging with the community—the local residents—because sometimes we have had to educate international students about some of the topics which will not be in the end-of-semester exams. These are things such as: where do you put the wheelie bins? How loud do you have the music? Is it okay to walk around without a top on? They are things like that, although I do not get a lot of complaints from people in my electorate about the last topic. Apparently some Swedish students did have this practice.

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