Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012. Whilst the coalition will not be opposing the bill, we do have some concerns with it. The purpose of the bill is to amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, the ESOS Act, and the Migration Act 1958 to abolish the current system of automatic visa cancellation for student visa holders who are in breach of the academic progress or attendance requirements of their student visa. The decision to cancel a student visa on these grounds will become discretionary rather than automatic.

The bill also amends the ESOS Act to provide that a registered provider of education to overseas students must advise the government of any change in a student's contact details within 14 days after becoming aware of the change. This bill arises as part of the government's response to the implementation of the Knight review's 41 recommendations, which the government has adopted, and the Strategic review of the student visa program report, which was released on 22 September 2011. Recommendation 24 of the Knight review is to abolish the automatic cancellation of student visas, and replace that regime with a system in which information conveyed by student course variations is used as one factor to be taken into account in a more targeted and strategic analysis of non-compliance.

The bill was referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee by the Senate on 22 March 2012. The committee made three recommendations as follows:

Recommendation 1

… The committee recommends that the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, Research and Tertiary Education modify the Provider Registration and International Students Management System—

otherwise known as PRISM—

to allow for the effective and secure upload of data from the databases of registered providers, while maintaining the integrity of the system. The committee recommends that this modification be completed and be made operational as soon as possible.

Recommendation 2

… Until the Provider Registration and International Students Management System has been modified as set out in Recommendation 1, the committee recommends that, in addition to their obligations under Part 3 of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, registered providers only be required to notify the Department of Immigration and Citizenship of students' up-to-date contact information at the commencement of each semester, when students reenrol in their approved courses, or upon any variation or change to their enrolled course.

Recommendation 3

… Subject to Recommendations 1-2, the committee recommends that the Senate pass the Bill.

Submitters and witnesses to the Senate committee inquiry supported the proposal to abolish the automatic cancellation of student visas upon breach of a prescribed visa condition as proposed in new section 20(4A) of the Education Act. However, many expressed concern with the requirement for registered providers to notify the Department of Immigration and Citizenship within 14 days of any changes to an accepted student's contact or other prescribed details, as proposed in new section 19(1A) of the Education Act which provides:

A registered provider must give the Secretary particulars of any change in the contact details or other prescribed details of an accepted student within 14 days after the provider becomes aware of the change.

As set out in the Senate committee's report, the concerns of the submitters and witnesses are focussed on two issues: compliance costs and the PRISMS. PRISMS is administered by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education and interfaces with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's electronic system. PRISMS is a secure computer system for registered providers to manage their student enrolments, comply with the requirements of the Education Act and report student visa holders who have breached the prescribed conditions of their visa.

As stated in the Senate committee's report, at present part 3 of the ESOS Regulations 2001 requires registered providers to maintain their own enrolment records or databases. Providers are only required to update a student's address on PRISMS when reporting a change to that student's enrolment, such as a course variation, or when issuing a notice under section 20 of the Education Act.

Currently, smaller providers estimate they have an obligation to enter information into PRISMS for approximately one to two per cent of enrolled students, and larger universities estimate their current obligation to be for five per cent of students. The impact, however, of the proposed new section 19(1A) is that all registered providers will be required to enter all information into PRISMS. This means that every time a student changes address or gets a new mobile phone number, these details must be entered into PRISMS within 14 days after the provider becomes aware of the change. To facilitate this change, in the majority of cases extra administrative staff will be required to ensure compliance with the new reporting requirements. The bad news for international students—and in turn for the Australian international education industry—is that these compliance costs will in all likelihood be passed onto students or will lead to a reduction in the number and quality of services provided to students, hardly an outstanding outcome for a piece of legislation.

The regulatory impact statement for the Knight review notes that the international education sector is Australia's third biggest export industry, generating an income of $18.3 billion in 2010. One might say that as a country we must be doing everything we can to support our international education industry, in particular given the poor record of the Labor government when it comes to international education in Australia. The last thing this industry needs as it is trying to re-establish its international reputation is for providers to be layered with additional red tape forcing them to pass on the cost of compliance to international students.

As stated in the Universities Australia submission to the Senate inquiry:

The lack of consideration given to university administrative and reporting loads is reflected in the absence of any mention of the regulatory burden on providers in the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the Bill.

This is extremely concerning for the coalition and shows a lack of understanding of the impact of the proposed changes on behalf of this government.

As I have stated, the increased regulatory burden for registered providers resulting from the proposed insertion of section 19(1A) is a significant one. Providers estimate they currently enter information in PRISMS for a maximum-of five students in every 100 when reporting a change to the student's enrolment. Following the insertion of section 19(1A), they will be required to enter information into PRISMS for every student. Let us just look at that comparison again. They currently insert the information for five in every 100 students. If this change goes through, and the government does not take heed of what was a unanimous Senate committee's report, that is the administrative burden that will be placed on universities and providers.

The definition of 'contact details' will also be inserted into the ESOS Act as part of this bill. Contact details are defined as: the person's current residential address, the person's mobile phone number and the person's email address. Currently, registered providers already maintain their own databases containing student enrolment, course details and contact details, in compliance with part 3 of the Education Act. This proposal is therefore nothing more and nothing less than another example of what will become double handling and administrative inefficiency, something which I have to say I thought this government was trying to reduce. I also note the irony in the explanatory memorandum, which states that one of the objectives of the bill is to:

… reduce the administrative burden associated with students who attend an office of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to stop the automatic cancellation process or to apply for revocation of a cancellation. This will allow integrity resources to be more strategically targeted towards risk.

Ironically, there is no doubt that the bill achieves this stated objective, but whilst it may well reduce the administrative burden of DIAC—and some might argue that, given the lack of resources that the department has because of the border protection debacle, that is a good thing—the bill merely shifts the administrative burden to registered providers and that is hardly an ideal outcome, as was recognised in the Senate committee report. The Senate committee report also states that submitters and witnesses to the inquiry raised the time consuming manual data entry required to update student records in PRISMS and pointed to other existing electronic reporting systems, such as the higher education information management system, which allow information to be uploaded directly from registered providers' databases as appropriate models. Many submitters and witnesses supported the modification of PRISMS to similarly allow for the upload of bulk data.

The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, who administer PRISMS, advised the Senate committee that they are responding to the concerns of registered providers in relation to PRISMS by exploring possible enhancements to simplify and expedite data entry for providers. A claim made by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in its submission to the Senate inquiry was that it requires immediate access to up-to-date student contact details for purposes other than student course variations advised by registered providers. In its submission DIAC stated:

The Department may consider compliance action in circumstances where outside allegations or information has been brought to the Department's attention that the provider is not aware of. For example, where adverse information is received by the Department through external channels such as the Immigration dob-in line or targeted integrity obligations. For this reason, it is important to have access to the most up to date contact details at all times, rather than just when a student course variation is made.

I do note that despite the department's position, so eloquently put, the committee formed the view that as DIAC was requesting registered providers furnish potentially large amounts of information, and taking into account possible privacy concerns, it was actually the DIAC's responsibility to facilitate the effective and safe upload of information from provided databases to PRISMS. At paragraph 2.30 the committee found as follows:

The Committee ... notes evidence presented during the inquiry, suggesting that the proposal to require registered providers to notify DIAC of any changes in students' contact or other prescribed details is unnecessary and is (within 14 days) overly prescriptive and an unnecessary burden on providers.

Again, that is the finding of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry, which, I understand, was a unanimous report. Paragraph 2.32 states:

The Committee acknowledges that, under Part 3 of the Education Act, registered providers are already required to maintain records and/or databases containing students' contact details. Further, if a student breaches a prescribed visa condition, subsection 19(2) of the Education Act requires providers to notify DIAC of that breach, including the student's contact details. The Committee therefore considers that existing provisions of the Education Act provide DIAC with up-to-date contact information for students who are reported for non-compliance with prescribed visa conditions. The Committee notes that there is no restriction on DIAC from approaching registered providers at any time for a student's current contact information.

The committee therefore recommended that PRISMS be modified to allow for the effective and secure upload of data from the databases of registered providers while maintaining the integrity of the system and that until PRISMS has been modified providers should only be required to advise DIAC of up-to-date contact information at the start of each semester or upon any variation to their enrolled course.

While the committee report touches on compliance costs, the PRISMS electronic reporting system and consultation with the international education sector, there is still further clarification required in relation to the thresholds, the definitions and the trigger points that would accompany the new compliance regime. As the shadow minister for immigration, Scott Morrison, said in his speech in the other place, we need to be clear about the resource requirements that this new regime will demand. The minister needs to explain how he will define whether a student visa breach has been made, and how the minister is going to make these decisions under discretionary powers once the blanket automatic cancellation of student visas has been abolished.

The coalition is supportive of efforts to streamline and better target resources towards migration fraud and noncompliance in the student visa sector; however, the circumstances under which possible compliance action will be taken are not clear at this stage. Whilst an education provider will be still required to report a visa violation, it is not clear what mechanism or circumstance will trigger an investigation or prove severe enough to prompt visa cancellation.

We are already well aware of this Labor government's failure in the Immigration portfolio, specifically in relation to irregular maritime arrivals. Given the significant contribution the international student sector makes to our economy, it is extremely concerning that the Auditor-General found last year that management of this critical industry and of the visa program was not sufficiently robust to effectively meet the challenges involved in achieving the government's objective for the student visa program of balancing industry growth and program integrity.

The ANAO found that more than 350,000 non-compliance notices issued to students had not been acted upon, prompting fears that the backlog could obscure serious cases of noncompliance. The Auditor-General's report in May 2011 also found the department was unable to effectively monitor the 20-hour work restriction on student visas or to enforce compliance because of the lack of an appropriate regulatory regime.

The report also states that DIAC's integrity and compliance units were hampered in managing the pressure associated with the increase in program growth, by the department's failure to update its national compliance program after 2008, and by the backlog of non-compliance notices—NCNs—for student visa holders. The backlog of NCNs is estimated to be in excess of 350,000, with the Knight review identifying around 35 per cent belonging to the higher risk categories.

Interestingly, though, as a result of this bill, the unbelievable and quite damning administrative backlog of over 350,000 NCNs will simply be wiped away. DIAC will draw a line under the 350,000 non-compliance notices and will merely move on. I note that this is despite the Knight review identifying that 35 per cent of 350,000 non-compliance notices are within the high-risk category.

Australian taxpayers have lost confidence in this government's ability to run an efficient and effective migration program. It is, quite frankly, hard to see how DIAC will find the resources to manage this new discretionary regime, given the increased budgetary and staff pressures as a result of the government's mismanagement of the immigration program, particularly border protection. The coalition supports any measures that will improve and restore the integrity of the immigration system. It remains to be seen, however, whether this bill will do just that or merely add to the already existing chaos within the department.

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

Firstly, I congratulate my friend Senator Cash on a typically lucid and eloquent address as always. As Senator Cash has pointed out, the coalition does support the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012, but with some reservations. As is so often the case with this government's legislation, we do support the policy or the policy objective but we are concerned about some details of implementation. In this case we have concerns about some compliance mechanisms of the new visa cancellation procedures.

I am happy to say that there is a political consensus within our country regarding the crucial importance of international education to our universities and other post-secondary education institutions as well as, more broadly, our economy and indeed right throughout the world in terms of diplomacy and soft power. That I think is broadly a bipartisan consensus. Australia hosts and educates the third largest number of international tertiary students in the world after the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The proportion of international to domestic tertiary students in our country is more than three times the OECD average. On a per capita basis Australia educates more young people from overseas than any other nation on earth. We are a destination of choice for young people from nearly 200 nations. It is one of our great national achievements in fact. In terms of exports, education benefits the Australian economy nearly as much as gold and a few billion dollars more than tourism. It is not our beaches, the Great Barrier Reef or the Outback that is bringing in most visitors to Australia; it is in fact our lecture halls. The most common answer to the famous tourism ad slogan 'Where the bloody hell are you?' is 'At university studying.'

Spectacular natural beauty and abundant natural resources make us a lucky country but a successful world-class education sector makes us a smart country. I think we should try to depend more on our smarts than our luck in the future. This is the only sensible and indeed the only sustainable way forward. Despite international student enrolments having fallen in the last couple of years—that is true—our higher education enrolments have in fact flattened. Some might argue that this suggests a continuing downward trend in international student enrolments in Australia. I disagree with that. In international education, just like in politics, demography is destiny, and demography favours Australian higher education—there is no doubt about that. Next door to us, throughout Asia and particularly in China and India, their middle classes are growing at a prodigious rate—the result of decades of sustained economic growth and indeed spreading prosperity. The growth of the middle class in turn fuels the demand more and more for higher education. Both China and India are very aware of that and are spending billions and billions of yuan and rupees to expand their own tertiary education system. But no matter how much they spend, it is unlikely that they will be able to expand quickly enough. So the demand is likely to outstrip the domestic supply.

Worldwide right now there are about 2½ million people studying outside of their home countries. Some estimate that their number will increase to eight million students studying overseas in the next decade or so. Australia is in a unique position, both in terms of geography and our existing infrastructure, to take advantage of this demand, particularly since we are able to offer—let's face it—a premium product. Not only are our degrees prestigious and carry a lot more weight around the world; in addition, we offer not just education but also an educational experience: a few memorable years of enjoying our lifestyle and our culture as well as building valuable contacts and connections for the future.

We should not as a country be satisfied with merely being the bread basket of Asia or indeed being just its mining pit when we could also be its lecture hall. Just as in the past Australia has ridden to prosperity on the sheep's back and is now riding on the mining conveyor belt, so too can it in the future ride on the shoulders of our scholars and our educators. Already our country is a global superpower in terms of natural resources, agriculture and usually in sporting prowess—so we are a superpower—and I tell people here and overseas that we are also an education superpower. But this is a status that we have to carefully guard and nurture. Our competitors in international education services—countries like the United States and indeed the United Kingdom—are watching and waiting all the time for Australia to stumble so that they can make inroads into our share of the international education market. That is why it is so essential to get the policy settings right, including those in the area of immigration, balancing the needs of our education industry with the need to ensure the integrity of our migration system.

This bill amends the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2003 and the Migration Act 1958 so that a decision to cancel a student visa will be done on a case-by-case basis. The current system automatically cancels student visas when the holder of that visa breaches the academic progress or attendance requirements. Also, a change in contact details of a holder of a student visa must now be reported to the government by the education provider within 14 days of the education provider becoming aware of the change.

The impetus for this change comes from the 2011Strategic Review of the Student Visa Program, commonly referred to as the Knight review. The review was set up 'in response to concerns about the competitiveness of Australia's international education sector and the integrity of the student visa system'. Senators will be aware that the Hon. Michael Knight was a minister in a former New South Wales Labor government. I would actually like to pay him a tribute. His report is a model of clarity, both in its expression and in its call for remedial action, and I would like to congratulate him for that. Mr Knight's review followed the review by the Hon. Bruce Baird of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000.

Both the Knight review and the Baird report reflect the government's determination to decouple education and study from residency and immigration. Can I just say that I agree with the government. Whilst some students might well seek citizenship—and that is fine; some overseas students seek citizenship—for the tens of thousands of overseas students who study here, immigration is a different claim and a different process. Immigration should not be the automatic entitlement of the privilege of studying in Australia. The Knight review made 41 recommendations, and the government gave the review in-principle support. A majority of the changes have already been implemented, and this bill seeks to implement recommendation 24 of the Knight review, which states:

Automatic cancellation of student visas should be abolished and replaced by a system in which information conveyed by SCVs—

that is, student course variations—

is used as an input into a more targeted and strategic analysis of non-compliance.

This change is supported by all stakeholders and was supported by all the submissions and the witnesses when the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs held an inquiry into this bill.

As I mentioned at the outset, the coalition supports the bill, albeit we have some concerns about the implementation and compliance issues. Among other issues, and these were addressed by Senator Cash explicitly and in some detail in her speech, the coalition is concerned that the requirement that education service providers must notify the Department of Immigration and Citizenship of any changes in student contact details may well be onerous, particularly on some of the smaller providers. There is also an issue about how education providers upload information to the database—that is, the Provider Registration and International Student Management System, PRISMS. As Senator Cash pointed out, this raises some issues of privacy. We will certainly monitor the rollout of the new procedures and the new system to ensure that it functions well, achieves its objectives and does not place an unreasonable burden on providers.

Australia is a nation of immigrants. Whether people from other nations seek to study here or live here, the integrity of our immigration system is vital to ensuring public confidence in the system and in making sure that our immigrants and our students add to our national life.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am conscious, Mr Acting Deputy President Edwards, that you hope to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012, but your duties to the parliament perhaps might prevent you. I am not sure that my contribution would be such that it would facilitate your speaking. I just want to support Senator Cash in the comments she has made.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about Senator Mason and his comments?

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

That goes without saying.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does indeed go without saying. It is Senator Cash's bill and Senator Cash was our lead speaker. But, of course, as always, I along with everyone else in this chamber am always impressed with every contribution that Senator Mason makes.

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

Hear, hear!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a fellow Queenslander and, perhaps, a voter he is always close to my thoughts.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, you need to give me some protection from the interjections by the minister. He is diverting me from the very serious part of my speech. We in the coalition understand that we do have to have a system that is accountable and that works and a system that does not allow for some of the unfortunate incidents that we have seen in the past. Having said that, there are two things that are principally crippling this country. One is a very bad government that is quite dysfunctional. The other thing that cripples this country, in addition to all the new taxes that have been imposed and the cost-of-living increases, is regulation.

Wherever you look these days, you find there is more and more and more regulation. It is becoming a burden. Mr Acting Deputy President, did you know—and I am ashamed to admit that I have just ascertained it—that the Abstudy application form has some 36 pages of material to fill in? Bearing in mind that many of the people called upon to complete Abstudy application forms are parents of children living in remote parts of our country, many of whom have limited, if I might say, education, if any education at all, they are required to fill in 36 pages of questions that even I as a former lawyer find difficult to understand. As a result of that, Centrelink rejects a lot of Abstudy applications, and I am told by constituents in North Queensland that, in rejecting these applications, Centrelink just says, 'rejected.'

And when the school involved asks what the reason is for the objection, it is told by Centrelink: 'There's a matter of privacy here. We cannot tell you. We can tell the student or the student's parents, but not the school who is providing the education for Indigenous people.'

That is not directly germane to this bill but it is germane to my concern about the increase in regulation and form filling, which in the case of Abstudy is quite atrocious. Because of that, there is a school in North Queensland in administration now because it has provided the tuition, it has provided the care, it has provided the sustenance, it has provided the transport from remote parts of Northern Australia into Townsville, but it has not been getting Abstudy because the parents have not filled in the forms correctly and Centrelink will not tell the school what the problem is. It is a disgrace in the instance I am talking about, as told to me by my constituents, that $5.2 million is owing to the school. The school cannot run on love—although it does exude a lot of love. That is an example of how this country is being strangled by red tape.

Finally, before I sit down—I am conscious that my colleague Senator Edwards is now able to speak and wants to speak—I want to mention something about student visas. I know that all Australian universities are very welcoming and very good, but those students from Asia should really be going to James Cook University in Townsville and Cairns, or Charles Darwin University in Darwin, or Notre Dame in Broome. James Cook is a magnificent university with a worldwide reputation for marine science, among other things. I always point out that for Asian students, you go to a place which has the same sort of atmosphere, the same sort of relaxed 'Asian style' of learning. The James Cook University has a campus in Singapore—I have just mentioned that to my guest at the Singapore luncheon today. These are schools which welcome international students and require these visas, but I know James Cook University, like any other university and any other provider, struggles under the red tape. Notwithstanding that, I will be supporting the bill.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Macdonald. We should charge you for advertising!

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for facilitating me being able to rise to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012. In 2010 the Australian government commissioned the Knight review to evaluate the student visa program to enhance the quality, integrity and competitiveness of Australia's international education sector. The final report of the Knight review contained 41 recommendations, which the Australian government accepted. We have heard about the Knight review. Both Senator Cash and Senator Mason have referred to that report in relatively glowing terms. They having been involved in this sector much longer than I have and I accept the fact that this is good work that has been conducted.

Recommendation 24 suggests the government should act to abolish the automatic cancellation of student visas and replace that regime with a system in which information conveyed by student course variations is used as one factor to be taken into account in a more targeted and strategic analysis of noncompliance. The bill amends the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000—the education act—and the Migration Act 1958 and obviously, in good governance, recommendation 24 is now to be implemented. If the bill is successful, it means it is going to be a far better regime in which to manage these visas in the future.

It is important that we have the correct policy settings that encourage and promote this important export sector. According to Universities Australia it is worth over $17 billion in export dollars and is responsible for the creation of over 120,000 FTE jobs in Australia. As a South Australian senator, this sector is one of the big success stories of my home state's economy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics states that the international education industry provided $925 million to the South Australian economy in 2010-11—nearly $1 billion of a contribution to a state that is in serious need of revenue increases.

Adelaide continues to attract record numbers of international students, with more than 31,000 choosing Adelaide as their study destination in 2011. International education generates more than 6,500 local jobs and is the state's largest service sector export and the fourth-largest overall export behind wine, copper and wheat. International students pay full fees for all courses and are not subsidised by government.

The University of Adelaide—very dear to my heart—is a member of the prestigious Group of Eight universities that consistently ranks among the best in the Asia-Pacific region. In May 2006 Carnegie Mellon University opened its Asia-Pacific education base in Adelaide. University College London is offering masters degrees specific to the mining sector from its new Adelaide campus, which opened in 2010. It is therefore critical that we, in a policy sense, do what we can to support, promote and grow this sector which is so important to my home state and to Australia on the whole.

Much is made of the rise of Asia and the Asian Century—how Australia can be the food bowl for the growing middle class and, just as importantly, is providing education to millions of young people who are on our doorstep. I have only just left the reception for the Prime Minister of Singapore who, in reference to Australia, reflected fondly on the Colombo Plan, which has provided his country with so many graduates who have taken on very senior public service roles in his country.

In the next decade or so, China is likely to grow from the second largest to the largest economy in the world, while India will rise from the ninth largest to the third largest. With this growth in their economies, their middle class is likely to swell by a factor of three out to 2030 and will make up 16 per cent of the world's middle class. The Chinese recognise the importance of a good tertiary education, and the number of institutions in China has increased from 598 in 1978 to 1,867 in 2006. Similarly, the proportion of the Chinese population enrolled in tertiary study increased from 3.4 per cent to 22 per cent between 1990 and 2008—a remarkable increase in both institutional availability and the number of people filling them. Meanwhile, India will need to build some 1,000 universities to meet the education demands of its growing number of young people. Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand have similar stories to tell.

China is already our largest source country, with over 40,000 students coming to Australia in 2011. Around 5,000 Malaysian and Indian students came in the same year. The changing demographics and conditions I have just described represent an enormous opportunity for this country—an opportunity which we must not squander. Australia has held a competitive advantage in this area for some time. We have safe, liveable cities to accommodate international students and a university sector that is already geared towards international students. Throughout the years, Australia has built up a rich history of exchange with these and many other countries around the world.

Under this government we have seen international student enrolments decline. Enrolments are expected to reach a low of 485,000 next year. This will see the sector generate $14 billion instead of $18 billion and shed 27,000 jobs. This represents a 23 per cent drop in the number of students between 2009 and 2013, or a 22 per cent drop in the value of education as an export. That is alarming in anybody's language. I hope the minister is cognisant of these figures and this decline. We have to be vigilant and ensure that this does not continue. There has been broad support for the proposal to abolish the automatic cancellation of student visas upon breach of a prescribed visa. However, the requirement for registered providers to notify the Department of Immigration and Citizenship within 14 days of any changes to an accepted student's contact or other prescribed details has caused some concern.

The Senate inquiry into this bill highlighted two main issues. The concerns of submitters and witnesses focussed on two issues, including the compliance costs. We heard Senator Macdonald talk about the creeping need for applications to be blown out. I think in his case it represented 36 pages in applications for courses and to attend university. For people where English is their second language, that is an unnecessary complication.

To address this, firstly we must look to modify the Provider Registration and International Students Management System to allow for the effective and secure upload of data from the databases of registered providers. Secondly, until recommendation 1 is implemented and we can be sure that information is securely uploaded, registered providers should only be required to notify the Department of Immigration and Citizenship of students' up-to-date contact information at the commencement of each semester when students re-enrol in their approved courses or upon any variation or change to their enrolled course. We do not want layers of bureaucracy. In fact, that is not what we should be looking to do. Thirdly, on the proviso that the first two recommendations are implemented, the bill should be passed.

The coalition welcomes any opportunity to reduce bureaucracy and minimise the amount of cumbersome paperwork that students and others have to fill out in order to come to Australia. We want to make it as easy and as simple as possible for international students to live and study in Australia. As I have highlighted, this is an important industry, not only to my home state but also to the nation as a whole. I thank the Deputy President for his indulgence in letting me speak this afternoon.