Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

While the Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment Bill 2011 and the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Registration Charges Consequentials) Bill 2011 are noncontroversial, the policy settings for the regulation of the provision of educational services for overseas students is, of course, anything but noncontroversial. Honourable senators would be well aware that international education is one of Australia's major export industries.

This is not a widely known fact and, sadly, it does not attract the attention from parliament and from the community that it deserves. While we in this place constantly debate the carbon tax, the mining super profits tax, boat people and so forth, and debate rages about those matters, there is very little debate about education and international education. The fate of education exports seems to be something that only a few insiders are excited about. I am excited about it, Senator Rhiannon is excited by it, but not enough people are excited by it. But what is at stake is the international competitiveness of industries which contribute tens of billions of dollars to our economy, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide for innumerable other direct and indirect benefits for our country, among them being a great diplomatic effect that international education has for this country and its relations particularly with East Asia.

I was saddened to read yesterday the latest ABS figures, which showed that in the 2010-11 financial year international education dropped by almost 10 per cent in value from $18 billion in 2009-10 to only $16.4 billion last financial year. That drop—over $1½ billion in export industries—is a big drop and a lot of money. Sadly, it was not surprising. Our education sector has been sounding the alarm for quite some time as it has been battered by a perfect storm of the high Australian dollar and by some damage to our reputation both in safety and standards in some of our higher education facilities. Yet for all this, Australia still hosts and educates the third-largest number of international tertiary students in the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom. Per capita, we educate more international students than any nation on earth and we do it very, very well.

With the proportion of international to domestic tertiary students at more than three times the OECD average, Australia clearly remains a destination of choice for international students. It remains so today, but we cannot take that for granted. With that in mind, the opposition eagerly awaits the outcome of the Knight review into student visas, as well as the government's response to the Knight review. This will, hopefully, allow for fine tuning of policy parameters to strike the right balance between the integrity of our migration system and the openness of our education sector. In the meantime, the coalition will support the bills before the parliament as they seek to address the issue of standards and quality in Australia's international education services.

These bills will create a new fee structure for higher education providers who wish to be registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students. Registration on CRICOS allows higher education providers to offer courses to overseas students. If they are not on the list then they cannot offer courses to overseas students. This implements recom­mendations arising from the review of the education services for overseas students legislative framework, titled Stronger, simpler, smarter ESOS: supporting inter­national studentsthe ESOS review—conducted by the Hon. Bruce Baird, a former Liberal Party minister.

The new base fee, the compliance history fee, charge per student enrolment and charge per registered course are designed to cover the administrative costs of the registration process and reflect the size of any associated supervision, compliance or enforcement activity needed to ensure that only reputable providers are permitted to operate. I commend these bills to the Senate and hope and wish that honourable senators pay much attention to overseas education.