Bigger, Better: Adelaide Airport chief Brenton Cox talks under-resourced border security and international students entangled in immigration debate

Frontline Australian border security has been dramatically under-resourced and international students unreasonably entangled in an immigration debate, says Adelaide Airport chief Brenton Cox.

Adelaide Airport chief Brenton Cox. Picture Dean Martin

Frontline Australian border security has been dramatically under-resourced and international students unreasonably entangled in an immigration debate, says Adelaide Airport chief Brenton Cox.

In an interview with The Advertiser, Mr Cox said the lucrative international education industry had been lumped in with a broader fight about immigration, housing and infrastructure.

He urged the more than $1bn reaped from overseas traveller departure fees by the federal government to be fully diverted into frontline Australian Border Force staff and technology, saying more than half of these funds was now diverted into general revenue.

Mr Cox, the airport’s general manager since 2021, said more effective and better-funded border controls enabled quicker movement for legitimate travellers and enhanced strength and integrity of the immigration system.

State government ministers Joe Szakacs and Tom Koutsantonis with Paddy Lowe, founder and CEO of Zero Petroleum, Brenton Cox, managing director of Adelaide Airport, and Allan Sommerville, Qantas regional manager at Adelaide Airport. Picture: Emma Brasier

“I think people have somewhat lost trust in the strength and integrity of our border system. “When you arrive internationally into Australia, in any major port, you’re met a little bit with the front line of that effect, that we have not adequately resourced our frontline Border Force staff,” he said.

“At the moment we take over $1bn – every time someone leaves our country, we charge them $70, and that includes even Australians going to Bali, and less than half of that money goes to front line border protection – it’s squirrelled off into general revenue.

“We think that it’s better placed resourcing to those great people that we need on the front line who are both welcoming people to Australia, and also they are the front line making sure that we have absolute border integrity.”

Mr Cox said some revenue from international students should be invested in border integrity, rather than “cutting off an industry that is growing the wealth of Australians”.

Adelaide Airport is improving connectivity to Adelaide. Picture Dean Martin

International students comprised about five per cent of the Adelaide rental market, he said, yet the industry had “become somewhat of a scapegoat” for an “intellectually impure argument” about border security.

Figures released in mid-2024 showed international education had become South Australia’s top export, valued at $3.152bn, and the first export sector to exceed the $3bn mark. This followed a record 54,000 international student enrolments in SA.

Facing pressure over international student numbers being linked to the national housing crisis, federal Education Minister Jason Clare last August announced the government would set international student commencements at 270,000 for the 2025 calendar year – a similar number to 2023.

But the federal government also instituted individual limits for each public university across Australia, meaning each would be impacted differently.

At the time, Premier Peter Malinauskas said his campaign against any adverse impacts on SA universities had been successful and the state would be unaffected.

In the Advertiser interview for the Building a Bigger, Better South Australia campaign, Mr Cox said Australia risked squandering the lucrative industry by shutting the door on students, like Canada had, and the market turning to other countries. Foreign student enrolments in Canada slumped further than anticipated after caps were imposed in early 2024.

“In a highly globally competitive industry like global education, one door closes, another door opens,” he said.

Mr Cox said Australia could not afford to coast following two decades of economic success underpinned by the rise of China, the nation’s biggest trading partner.

“Our next two decades, I think our wealth and prosperity isn’t going to come quite so easily. We have to be able to be smart on one hand and productive on the other,” he said.

“When you look at international students (as an export industry), it’s literally more valuable than gold. When you’ve got the golden goose, you don’t stop it from laying the golden eggs.”

Asked about the consequences at Adelaide Airport of an under-resourced Australian Border Force, Mr Cox urged more funding to support “the really fantastic frontline people from Border Force and the Department of Agriculture”.

Brenton Cox outside a Singapore Airlines aircraft. Picture: Dean Martin

“We would like to see more resources put into those good people – having more good people available to be deployed on our frontline and, in addition, having more technology.,” he said

“ So more kiosks, but also all of the supporting technology that can help our frontline people do their jobs. They’re making sure that people have a right to be arriving and that there’s no criminal elements involved through our borders.

“It is a good use of taxpayer funds to be ensuring that those frontline services are adequately resourced in every sense of the word.”

Mr Cox said the consequence for legitimate travellers would be speedier transition through airport customs and passport checks.

“It was in somewhat more desperate times that John Howard made the comment: ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’,” he said.

“It goes back really to that whole point – we’re making a deliberate decision around who we want to come into our great country. That includes Australians returning.

“So let’s have strong sovereignty and the better we do it, not only does that give us strong borders, but it also makes our customer service and customer experience to the world, including to ourselves, better.”

Keep the high flyers coming to SA

Premier Peter Malinauskas is being urged to kickstart talks to cement the wildly popular AFL Gather Round in South Australiaby locking in the event beyond next year.

In an interview with the Sunday Mail, Adelaide Airport managing director Brenton Cox said major sports events such as GatherRound, LIV Golf and Test cricket enhanced the state’s reputation, attracted investment and significant numbers of visitors.

LIV Golf’s superstars, including American Brooks Koepka, and corporate high-flyers jetted into Adelaide this week, arriving on at least five private jets worth between $30m and $95m each.

Anirban Lahiri of Crushers hits an iron on the 15th during LIV Golf Adelaide. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

Charl Schwartzel at the LIV Golf tournament. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

A huge commercial airliner, which is understood to cost about $40,000 an hour to rent, was also in Adelaide for the firsttime. The aircraft, with 100 flat-bed seats, brought Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Australian Cam Smith to town for LIV Golf Adelaide.

The AFL in 2023 inked a three-year deal with the state government to host Gather Round, worth as much as $80m in cash and infrastructure, and that expires after the 2026 season. Mr Malinauskas used the AFL grand final function last September to press the case to make SA the permanent Gather Round home, but is understood not to have yet launched formal talks.

Mr Cox said Gather Round, as with the LIV Golf, ignited enduring brand recognition for Adelaide and the state and triggereda surge in visitor numbers.

“We have put our foot on Gather Round as something that should be ours to own and it’s ours to lose,” Mr Cox said. “I’d liketo think we’d be taking up the opportunity to lock that down for as long as possible.”

Also urging LIV Golf be locked in for SA, Mr Cox urged all governments to get behind major events to give taxpayers confidence that money invested to attract them had been well spent.

Cameron Smith of Ripper GC hits off a path onto the 18th green during LIV Golf Adelaide. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

He said LIV Golf was a globally recognised event that gave Adelaide enduring brand recognition, while Gather Round createda buzz about SA interstate. These events should be locked down for the long term, he said, pointing to the benefits of lastAugust cementing a seven-year deal for pre-Christmas cricket Tests at Adelaide Oval.

“Through the aviation lens, we have airlines who see huge pockets of demand going to Adelaide and they redeploy their resourcesto Adelaide to get all these people coming here and they make money from that,” Mr Cox said.

“So when our customers have their eyes focused on Adelaide, that gives them confidence that we’re a market that they shouldinvest in – and we, of course, want more airlines to invest in, Adelaide and SA.

“That for us is just a very direct and benefit, But what you, of course, see is just a broader brand cachet. We’re now a placethat people in Sydney and Melbourne, if you are in your early 20s, you look to and go, ‘there’s something going on over there’.”

During last year’s Gather Round, it was revealed the AFL reportedly was making contingency plans to hold three such events a season as early as 2028, with the first in Victoria and Tasmania and the second over Easter in Sydney.

The third event would be alternated annually between Adelaide and Perth.

This was despite AFL chief Andrew Dillon signalling at an Adelaide breakfast he wanted SA to be the permanent host.

Originally published as Bigger, Better: Adelaide Airport chief Brenton Cox talks under-resourced border security and international students entangled in immigration debate