Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025
Ms BERRY (Whitlam) (15:59): The Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025 amends four acts administered by the education portfolio in order to strengthen the quality, integrity and sustainability of the delivery of education in Australia and improve equity and access in higher education, particularly for First Nations peoples. The four acts to be amended are the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011, the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999.
The amendments to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act support the Albanese government's commitment to the quality, integrity and long-term sustainability at all levels of the international educational sector. International education brings tens of billions of dollars into the Australian economy each year. It's our fourth-largest export and it also delivers valuable cultural and social benefits.
Overseas students enrich our communities and classrooms, and the relationships and links forged through their experiences in Australia result in long-term benefits in countries around the world, particularly in the strategically important Asia-Pacific region. My former university, the University of Wollongong—which is also attended by many people from my electorate—attracts thousands of international students each year and has built a global reputation for excellence in higher education.
Many other universities around the country have benefited from Australia's high-quality international education services. At its best, Australian international education facilitates meaningful cross-cultural exchanges and builds influential alumni networks that enhance Australia's reputation and influence in the world. Unfortunately, however, the sector's success has also attracted unscrupulous actors, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022 Parkinson review of our migration system and the 2023 Rapid review into exploitation of Australia's visa system, known as the Nixon review, uncovered a range of serious integrity issues in Australia's international education system. In 2023 the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade conducted an inquiry into Australia's tourism and international education sectors.
This also highlighted integrity issues in the system. The integrity issues included some education providers making false promises that study in Australia provided a pathway to permanent migration while others encouraged non-genuine students to gain access to Australia's labour market by using a student visa. Some providers used a ghost school to present as a genuine education provider while students were actually funnelled into full-time work.
Other forms of exploitation uncovered in the reviews included charging exorbitant fees and wage theft and, at its worst, bonded labour and sex trafficking involving criminal networks. Overseas students can be particularly vulnerable to exploitation due to their youth, language challenges, their financial situation, the fact that they have limited or no knowledge of Australian law and their fear of deportation.
The amendments in this bill to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act will combat the exploitation of overseas students and address behaviours that seek to exploit the migration system. The reviews I have mentioned have revealed there is a problem with collusive and unscrupulous practices between some agents and providers. The Nixon review, for example, identified that some education providers formed business relationships and worked with education agents to facilitate student movements for the purposes of profit only, rather than genuine education needs and the needs of the student.
In response this bill inserts a new definition of 'education agent' which better captures their activities. Recent statistics show that 86 per cent of overseas students use an education agent to source study in Australia, so this change will have a widespread impact. Another amendment strengthens the fit-and-proper test for providers.
This will increase in greater scrutiny where there are cross-ownership arrangements between providers and agents and where providers are under investigation for serious offences. The bill also requires prospective providers to deliver courses to domestic students for two years before they can apply to teach overseas students. This will ensure they are committed to quality education.
Another important amendment gives the education department clearer powers to collect and store information on commissions. There is little data available in relation to these opaque arrangements. The change will help providers to choose reputable agents and exclude those who put students at risk.
The registration of providers that fail to deliver a course to overseas students for 12 consecutive months will be cancelled to help deal with what is known as phoenixing. The bill gives the Minister for Education the power to limit or cancel providers' ability to deliver courses in three circumstances: (1) where there are systemic quality and standard-of-delivery issues; (2) where the courses provide limited value to Australia's skills needs; and (3) where it's in the public interest to do so.
The minister will be able to pause new applications for providers or course registration for up to 12 months where needed, so agencies can focus on integrity issues. Together these reforms of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act make it harder for dodgy operators to enter or remain in the sector while supporting the majority of providers who are doing the right thing.
While Australia attracts thousands of people from overseas to study in our country each year, we are also a global leader in offshore delivery of higher education. Australian higher education providers are diversifying across new markets while embracing more innovative delivery models. The University of Wollongong, for example, delivers world-class teaching to students at campuses in Dubai, Hong Kong, Malaysia and India, and it also has a presence in China and Singapore.
The university has formal arrangements with more than 400 overseas institutions in 45 countries, spanning research collaborations, teaching collaborations, study-abroad and exchange programs, and offshore program delivery. This offshore expansion supports the sustainability of our international education sector and enables Australian higher education providers to extend their academic reach and foster international collaboration while enhancing the reputation of Australian education more broadly.
That is why we're introducing changes to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act to strengthen the regulation of offshore Australian education, ensuring that Australian providers are high quality and that they uphold Australia's reputation as top-tier education providers. Importantly, the changes are designed to provide adequate oversight of offshore arrangements while minimising the regulatory burden.
Another issue addressed by this bill is the underrepresentation of First Nations people in Australia's health workforce. In 2023, only 1.25 per cent of Australia's health workforce identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, while the percentage of doctors was even lower—about half of one per cent. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders make up 3.8 per cent of Australia's population.
Having more First Nations healthcare providers is extremely important because evidence shows they deliver better health outcomes for First Nations patients. First Nations doctors are more likely to practise in Aboriginal community controlled health services and also in regional, rural and remote communities. There is high demand for health workers in all regional, rural and remote communities.
This bill amends the existing definition of a 'demand driven higher education course' in the Higher Education Support Act to include undergraduate or postgraduate courses in medicine which are undertaken by a First Nations person at an Australian public university. This means that all First Nations students who meet the entry requirements to enrol in courses in medicine will now have a Commonwealth supported place.
I note this change was recommended by the Australian Universities Accord in its final report released last year, and Labor promised to implement the change if we were re-elected to government. This bill delivers on that promise, and I support it wholeheartedly. It should be noted that the Albanese government is implementing many initiatives to improve the lives of First Nations Australians to help close the gap.
The Australian government funds the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation to support training, work placements and mentoring for health worker trainees. They are leading the rollout of the Albanese government's First Nations Health Worker Traineeship Program, which aims to increase the supply of health workers and practitioners and address health workforce shortages in rural, regional and remote Australia.
In 2024, over 300 trainees enrolled in this program. The Albanese government has provided record funding for First Nations health infrastructure. We are increasing the availability of culturally safe and qualified mental health support for Indigenous Australians, including scholarships for up to 150 First Nations psychology students.
We are expanding access to PBS medicines for more First Nations people. We are rolling out and upgrading existing facilities in 12 First Nations communities to help improve long-term health outcomes. Last year, we opened the first of up to 30 dialysis units in regional and remote locations so that First Nations people could receive treatment closer to home and on country.
We are building a nutrition workforce in remote communities by upskilling local First Nations staff in remote stores. Twenty-one positions will begin this financial year, and the nutrition workforce will grow to more than 100 in the following two years. We are working with First Nations communities across Australia to tackle smoking and vaping.
We've committed to creating up to 210 First Nations healthcare positions to improve cancer health outcomes for First Nations people and to increase access to culturally safe maternal care through 10 birthing-on-country activities across rural and remote locations to improve outcomes for heavy birth rates and to reduce preterm births. The Albanese government is also implementing initiatives in other sectors to improve the lives of First Nations Australians, including in housing and employment, and, while there's a lot more to do, I'm proud of what this government has delivered so far and what it has committed to in the short-term future.
I believe that the amendment to this bill will result in an increase in the number of First Nations doctors, which is another important and valuable initiative. The final part of the bill before the House strengthens integrity and transparency in early education and care. Specifically, it amends the family assistance administration act to broaden the scope, use and handling of protected information collected under the act.
It promotes transparency and facilitates easier access to information about providers of early childhood education and care. It collects cost and financial information from early childhood education and care providers to ensure the Early Education Service Delivery Price project findings are underpinned by robust data, and it makes minor technical amendments to address inadvertent drafting omissions.
The Australian government invests more than $16 billion in the Child Care Subsidy program each year, and we're committed to building a system that is safe, affordable and accessible. To do that, we need a better understanding of the cost of delivering early education and care. These reforms will improve transparency in the early education and care sector, and this will build on the legislation passed by the parliament in July of this year to expand the Commonwealth's powers to publish information about providers that are sanctioned for non-compliance.
The changes to the family assistance administration act will improve access to information about providers, making it easier for families to make informed decisions about early education and care. They will also strengthen data integrity around governance arrangements, including where data is lawfully shared to support public policy development. The amendments in this bill address a range of significant issues.
In summary, the changes will strengthen the integrity of our world-class international education sector, help to increase the number of Indigenous doctors and improve the integrity of our early education and care system. These are important reforms, and I commend them to the House.