Budget 2021: Border policy ‘not smart way to do it’, says ANU chief Brian Schmidt

Low-risk international students should be allowed to enter Australia, says ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt.

ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt says a ‘can-do, problem-solving’ attitude could allow low-risk international students back into Australia.

Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt has called on the federal and state governments to bring a “can-do, problem-solving attitude” to Australia’s international border closure and allow low-risk foreign students back into the country.

The ANU has about 3000 students stranded overseas, mainly in China. “It’s really hard on them and many of them are in places which have very little COVID,” Professor Schmidt said.

Speaking after Treasury assumptions published in the federal budget showed that a full-scale return of overseas students and tourists is not expected until 2023, he said the approach governments were taking to the border was “not a smart way to do it”.

“By thinking beyond the hotel quarantine system and understanding the risk on a country-by-country basis, with some can-do, problem-solving attitude from the federal and state governments we could make huge inroads,” Professor Schmidt said.

“Right now, it seems people don’t want to try.”

He said that the ANU, whose $315m surplus in 2019 became an $18m deficit in 2020, had been hit worse than other universities ­because it had capped growth in student numbers well before COVID. It therefore missed out on revenue that had given a cushion to other universities once the pandemic hit. He said unless borders opened, other universities would soon be in ANU’s situation.

Unless the ANU could boost its revenue stream it would have “no choice” but to make a huge reduction in its research capacity, Professor Schmidt said.

“It takes decades to get back,” he said, pointing out that China had been working for decades to build the research capacity of its universities. “That’s what a strategic rival is doing,” he added.

The chair of the five Australian Technology Network universities, Iain Martin, said the budget was a missed opportunity for the government to respond to the need for skills in new areas.

He said the budget’s failure to offer ongoing support for the successful short, six-month courses pioneered last year left universities unable to plan for 2022.

The government has funded 50,000 short-course places in universities this year, and Professor Martin said there had been very strong uptake of them at Deakin University, where he is vice-chancellor. “If we have another year of closed borders, this issue of how we re-equip people to meet the skills needs of the community is more important than ever,” he said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek told The Australian that the decline in higher education funding over the next three years in the budget forward estimates meant worse outcomes for students and more job losses.

“Universities have been brought to their knees — and instead of using this budget to help them, Scott Morrison has stuck the knife in,” she said.

“The budget shows the Liberals are cutting university funding by 10 per cent over the coming years, with a cut of around $430m in the next two years alone.