Senate debates

Monday, 30 November 2015

Bills

Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015, Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration Charges) Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015; Second Reading

11:55 am

Photo of Robert SimmsRobert Simms (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015. The Australian Greens have long supported the protection of Australia's reputation as a provider of world-class higher education and training. From 2008 to 2011, a number of international students were left without either alternative placements or refunds when multiple education providers went out of business, so the then Labor government recruited Bruce Baird to lead a review into the ESOS legislation. Senator Carr has touched on some of the aspects of that review.

The Baird review found that there were untenable amounts of risk in the system for international students. Given this, it recommended a change in regulation and the creation of a risk management framework to protect international students from exploitation and to protect students from the risk of being left without either a refund or a qualification in cases of provider bankruptcy or market exit. To achieve this, it recommended the introduction of the Tuition Protection Service, which would assist international students to complete their qualification by finding alternative placements or, at worst, reimburse them in cases where providers went out of business.

The bill before the parliament today would unwind many of the regulations around the Tuition Protection Scheme that were put in place by the Labor government in response to the Baird review. These include the ending of the requirement of providers to hold student fees in a 'designated account' until course commencement; the removal of the 50 per cent cap on the up-front costs that are chargeable for longer courses; the removal of the concept of a 'study period'; and the lowering of reporting obligations for student defaults.

The minister, along with some other voices within the sector, now says that he has renewed confidence in the sector and that these regulations are just unwarranted red tape. The Australian Greens do not agree with that. Just last week another major provider in the VET sector, Vocation Limited, went into administration, leaving potentially 12,000 students in limbo. I ask the minister: how on earth can he have confidence in such a system, in such a sector? The Liberals are great at talking about removing red tape. When it is about protecting students, they want to remove red tape, but we know what happens when they take away the red tape: they roll out the red carpet for the shonks and those who are going to exploit vulnerable students. It is all part of the Liberal Party's obsession with a deregulation agenda. We have seen it being rolled out in our higher education sector across the board. We know that, if they win the next election, they are going to revive their plans to deregulate the university sector as well, potentially opening students up to huge amounts of exploitation and saddling them with lifetimes of debt, through skyrocketing HECS fees. That is the agenda of the Liberal Party when it comes to education in this country: 'Let's remove the red tape that actually protects students and let's leave them at the mercy of the market.' That is their agenda.

The Greens are not the only sceptics here. Here is an excerpt from the NTEU submission to the committee inquiry into the bill:

Supporters of the proposal to remove the designated account and 50% rules as a way of reducing provider compliance costs and red tape argue that it is justified as the international sector is more stable than when the current provisions to TPS were introduced in 2012. While we acknowledge that there have certainly been improvements, supporters of the changes argue that the RIS is premised on the assumption that the risk of circumstances (that is, the turmoil the sector experienced over the period 2008-2011) which was the catalyst for these and other changes is now very low or non-existent. However, given the recent evidence of widespread problems within the private vocational sector … we are concerned that both the Government and the sector are seriously underestimating the current levels of provider risk.

I repeat:

seriously underestimating the current levels of provider risk. As such the assumption that it is fine to pull back on regulatory protections is being made under a false premise.

Indeed, the Australian Greens agree that this decision is based on a false premise. Due to the problems within the VET FEE-HELP scheme, as identified in the recent Senate inquiry into the for-profit VET sector, there are more questionable providers than ever before. This is a scandal. Indeed, the Prime Minister has described it as such. Yet apparently the minister still has faith and confidence in this sector. It is our belief that the minister and the government have got their priorities completely wrong here. They need to sort out and tidy up this sector. They need to stop trying to pass the buck. We know that it was the Labor Party that brought in this system, but ultimately it is the Liberals that are in government and they need to try and find a solution.

Of course, the Greens have been advocating for many years that we should be cutting off funding to for-profit providers and redirecting funding back to TAFE. The government should be focusing on fixing this sector before they start going down the path of deregulating further, cutting away red tape, as they call it, and exposing students to huge amounts of risk. That is precisely what the government will do if this is legislated for today. That is precisely what will happen today if this legislation passes. We will be exposing students to more risk when we have not even solved the problems within the sector.

If the problems within the VET FEE-HELP scheme were to be fixed, it is quite possible that providers who rely on rorting the VET FEE-HELP system would struggle to stay afloat. After all, that is their business model. Many of the for-profit providers have an international student component to their business model so there is a structural risk to these international students' qualification and tuition if there is not appropriate regulation. What happens to those students and who carries this risk?

Given the problems identified here, it is the position of the Australian Greens that now is not the right time to pursue the deregulatory agenda contained within the bill. Now is not the time to be deregulating this industry further when we have rorts and scams endemic within this sector. Now is not the time to be saying: 'Let's remove the protections and let's expose students to even more risk.' It would be reckless and irresponsible to do so. It would pose too great a risk to students and Australia's international reputation as a world-class tertiary education provider. So the Greens will not be supporting this bill. We encourage other senators in this place to join us in our opposition to this bill.

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