13th Aug 2024, 5:28 PM – Representatives Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 - Consideration in Detail - Sunset clause on power to cap international student enrolments

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel (Independent), which means it failed. The amendment would have placed a sunset clause on parts 7 and 8 of schedule 1.

What do parts 7 and 8 do?

According to the bills digest:

Parts 7 and 8 introduce new Ministerial powers to regulate the provision of education to overseas students. They include allowing the Minister, via legislative instrument and with the agreement of the Minister responsible for Vocational Education and Training (VET) to:

• limit the enrolments of overseas students by provider, course or location, over a year

• automatically suspend and cancel specified courses on the basis of systemic issues, their value to Australia’s skills and training needs and priorities, or if it is in the public interest.

What is the purpose of this amendment?

Ms Daniel explained that:

I am yet to be convinced that the volume of foreign students coming to Australia is the core of the problem that the government is trying to solve here, that they are the primary cause of the housing and rental crises currently besetting our country and causing so much hardship to so many. Nor am I convinced that, even if that is a major problem, this legislation is the way to solve it. Overseas student numbers collapsed during COVID, understandably, and now it seems to me that we're seeing a temporary spike as numbers recover.

Amendment text

(1) Page 2 (after line 12), after clause 3, insert:

4 Sunsetting of Parts 7 and 8 of Schedule 1

(1) Despite item 53 of Schedule 1, the amendments made by Part 7 of Schedule 1 do not apply in relation to the 2027 calendar year and later calendar years.

(2) Despite item 56 of Schedule 1, the amendments made by Part 8 of Schedule 1 cease to apply after the end of the 2-year period starting at the commencement of that Part.