Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (16:12): I rise to speak briefly on parts 1 to 8 of the Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025. In 2024, the government introduced the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024. That bill, we were told, was introduced to improve the quality, integrity and sustainable growth of Australia's international education sector.

In June 2004, I stood in the House and said, 'I support the parts of this bill that do that,' but I also said that I couldn't support the bill in its entirety, because it went way beyond the stated intention. The 2024 bill gave the minister the power to cap international student enrolments by course and by university, which I argued was not about the sustainable growth of the sector; rather, it was a political response to our domestic housing crisis.

I introduced amendments to remove the student cap. They weren't supported. I called for the bill to be split.

That wasn't supported. And then the 2024 bill didn't pass. Now here we are in 2025 debating the same provisions that I supported last year but without the politicking of trying to legislate new international student caps.

So I'm glad to see that the government is responding to crossbench and community concern. This bill represents a significant improvement on the previous version. In this new bill, schedule 1, parts 1 to 8, addresses the legitimacy of education agents and providers and sets up more regulations to ensure that private education providers are providing a genuine education service.

As I've said previously, I support these measures as a response to problems within the international education sector. I've heard many stories about dodgy colleges, inadequate student preparation, student poverty and student exploitation. The proliferation of private education providers that take advantage of international students to make a profit has to stop, and I think stronger regulation of the system is needed.

I am supportive of the measures because they respond to issues identified in the Nixon review and the government's migration strategy, which, among other things, recommended addressing integrity issues within the international education sector and assisting regulators as they address unscrupulous provider behaviour through further legislative changes. There is clear evidence to back the need for these measures.

My final reason to support these parts of the bill is because they have stakeholder support. The Group of Eight, which includes the University of Western Australia in my electorate, said it supports the minister's stated aspiration to remove the 'shonks and crooks' and 'dodgy providers' from the system. The president of UNSW said they support the government's intention on integrity measures to weed out unscrupulous providers who exploit students.

And the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that ensuring the quality of the international education sector is crucial for Australian businesses. I am broadly in favour, but I do have one serious concern about this bill: it provides the federal minister with the power to suspend and cancel courses. It does not seem appropriate for the federal minister to intervene in this matter, and some stakeholders have raised concerns about this power.

I am willing to trust that this intervention will be used rarely, if at all. Maintaining safeguards around this power is also vital. Currently, the minister's suspension or cancellation of courses would occur through a disallowable legislative instrument allowing for parliamentary oversight and scrutiny.

So while I have concerns about how this power could be used, I would assume good faith in the rare exercise of this power and trust in the parliamentary oversight process. In conclusion, I am glad to see the government removing the international student cap, responding to a problem raised by my constituents, as well as responding to recommendations from a range of reports, so I commend this bill to the House.