The big discussion in the sector in recent months has been the federal government’s ongoing crackdown on the international student sector.
In the wake of the pandemic, overseas arrivals ballooned, with nearly half a million people coming into the country in 2022-23, a large proportion of whom were international students.
This surge largely involved a fair degree of catch-up following the closed borders of the Covid era and, even if the government did nothing, it’s highly likely numbers would have soon settled down around the long-term average.
A controversial topic
There are fewer issues as contentious in Australian politics as immigration, and the government soon felt the need to ‘do something’ about migration numbers – and given that international students make up a hefty proportion of overall arrivals, that probably seemed like the safest bet.
So late last year, Canberra started its now months-long war on the international student sector, with visas being denied outright to students from certain countries, application fees for student visas more than doubling, and heavy hints that the government would impose caps on total numbers if things did not go the way it wanted.
An overstated problem
For its part, the government is arguing that the industry is rife with bad actors, and that there is a need, as Education Minister Jason Clare said, to “protect the integrity of this system and its social licence to operate”. There’s some truth to this, of course, but it’s an overstated problem, and the government is putting a largely successful $448 billion program at risk in the name of weeding out a relatively small number of dodgy operators.
There is of course a need for better regulation in the sector, not least in the employment conditions endured by many teachers and general staff, and also by the students themselves, given they typically congregate in the low-wage, gig economy. It’s worth remembering that the Albanese government has indeed introduced some significant improvements for gig workers.
Complaints are nothing new
Employers are not without self-interest in their complaints. If it were up to the industry, there would be no limits at all on the sector, so it is always best to take some of these complaints with a grain of salt.
I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that employers often complain that something or other is about to destroy the industry, and so there is a degree of “boy who cried wolf” about some of their commentary.
But the crackdown has now arguably gone too far, and is putting at risk the livelihoods of IEU members in the sector. Certainly, any suggestion of quotas should be put on hold, and the government should also reconsider the recent visa fee increases. Given immigration numbers have already declined since the peak of 2022-23, it’s time to ease off the crackdown and give education, which is Australia’s largest export industry outside of agriculture and mining, a chance.
