Universities Australia accuses both parties of ‘targeting international students’

Labor and the Coalition are targeting international students in politically expedient attacks, says Universities Australia CEO Luke Sheehy.

Luke Sheehy, CEO of Universities Australia

Higher education peak body Universities Australia has accused both Labor and the Coalition of putting politics before the needs of international students and the health of the nation’s $48bn a year education export sector.

In a blistering speech to be delivered on Wednesday, Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy will say the Albanese government and the Peter Dutton-led opposition have yielded to “policies driven by polling”.

They “are openly targeting international students in their bid to slash migration” in an effort to position themselves politically for the coming federal election, he will say.

“Rarely do the major parties find common ground on migration, but here they are on a unity ticket with the shared aim of shutting the door to international students,” he will tell the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia conference being held at the Gold Coast.

“Seldom has another major export industry been treated as a political plaything in the way international education is right now. This bipartisan attack on international students is shortsighted and politically expedient.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton

The Albanese government became politically vulnerable over migration when Australia’s net migration level surged last year due to the return of international students. It responded first in December by slowing down student visa processing and rejecting more applications, and then last month by announcing it would cap international student enrolments.

The opposition, sensing a winning political issue in linking high housing costs to migration, has called for even deeper migration cuts.

Mr Sheehy will tell the conference, held by independent tertiary colleges, that the government’s initial action – to slow down and refuse student visas – would alone cost universities more than $500m this year, the equivalent of 4500 jobs in the higher education sector.

He will point out that, even as they lost international revenue, universities were “being asked to produce more knowledge, skills, opportunities and research in response to the findings of the (Universities) Accord final report.”

Mr Sheehy will also say cuts to international student numbers will adversely impact the wider economy.

“Australia’s international education sector supports 250,000 jobs nationally. Jobs not only in education but in sectors right across the economy in retail, tourism and accommodation,” he will say. He will also point out that international students accounted for more than half of Australia’s 1.5 per cent GDP growth last year. “The nation would have slipped dangerously close to recession if not for the rapid return of international students.”

He will tell the conference international students have become “inconvenient scapegoats” for Australia’s housing crisis, pointing to a Student Accommodation Council report that says international students make up only 4 per cent of the rental market, and only 13 of Australia’s 556 local government areas have a concentration of international students that is more than 10 per cent of the rental market.

“The Reserve Bank has said the cause of high house prices was not an increase in migration but a shortage of housing supply made worse by the pandemic,” Mr Sheehy will say.

In his speech he will contrast the bipartisan support for the mining industry to the lack of support for international education, even though it is comparable as a major export earner for Australia.

“We call upon both sides of the aisle to continue approaching this vitally important sector (education) in the same way they approach mineral exports.”