Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (16:17): International education matters to Australia and to Australia's prosperity. International education is one of our great success stories. It plays an important role in driving economic growth and prosperity for our nation.
International education brings tens of millions of dollars to our economy every year. Indeed, in the financial year 2023-24 it was worth $51 billion to the Australian economy. It supports around 250,000 jobs annually across sectors around the country, and there are more Australian jobs in this sector than in the entire mining or agricultural sectors.
Tourism—another big industry for Australia, another big export earner—is also strongly supported by the international education sector. International students and their friends and family make up around 69 per cent of Australia's tourism numbers. While vital to our domestic Australian economy, the benefits of international education are not limited to our borders.
International education also matters for our influence in the world and for Australia's international partnerships. It is a bridge to our region and, indeed, to our world. Australia is a magnet for students from more than 190 countries and has educated more than three million international students in the last 20 years.
International education is one of the pillars of Australia's statecraft. It is a source of real influence in our engagement with the world. As the assistant foreign minister during the last term of government, I met Australian alumni from Australian universities around the world, including many who had risen to positions of senior leadership in their home countries.
Among others, I met Australian alumni in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Egypt, India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia, Thailand and the State of Palestine. I met ministers, business leaders, academics, all of whom were educated right here in Australia. I met alumni who had improved the lives of people with disability in their home countries, empowered women and girls, strengthened healthcare systems, enhanced education, and provided vital contributions to sustainable energy production and transmission, and infrastructure development.
It is always a source of pride, that connection between our two countries, with the skills and expertise learnt in Australia being applied in a home country for the development of that nation. For nearly 75 years, Australia has supported educating the region's leaders through our Australia Awards program, providing scholarships for students to come and study here.
That's a legacy built on trust, shared values and a belief in the power of education to transform lives and to make a real contribution to the stability and prosperity of our region. Through those Australia Award scholarships and the Colombo Plan scholarships before them, we offered talented individuals the opportunity to study in Australia, gain a world-class education and build networks that last a lifetime.
While studying here they make friends here and develop people-to-people connections through education, and that complements our efforts to deepen our economic partnerships with countries around the region. Education has been and continues to be the cornerstone of many of our strongest relationships in the Indo-Pacific region. Our region is a young one.
It presents many opportunities for Australia. The median age of countries in the Indian Ocean region is just 29. More than half of the population of South-East Asia is under 30.
One million people in India turn 18 every month. Young people and their aspirations are a centre of political gravity in our region. It's important, therefore, for Australia to harness the opportunity of our region's demographic dividend through what we can offer with international education.
But, in order to realise this very real opportunity, this very real potential, the integrity and trust of our international education sector must be preserved. It's important for the international education sector to be resilient to change by diversifying their student cohort and reducing their overreliance on single-source markets for students. That's why we've introduced a range of reforms to the international education sector, including the bill being debated here today, the Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025.
We've introduced reforms which will strengthen the trust and integrity of the international education sector, to maintain Australia's strong reputation abroad for international education. We've introduced reforms to incentivise Australian universities to diversify their source markets at home for international students, enhancing the long-term resilience of Australian universities and ensuring we can continue to educate the future leaders of our region.
Firstly, the Albanese government's reforms ensure that we protect the trust and integrity of the international education sector. Unfortunately, in recently times, the international education sector has been a target for dishonest individuals trying to scam the system. Since 2022, the Albanese government has been taking action to clean up the mess on this front left by the former coalition government.
The previous government's decision to uncap student work hours was one of the worst policy decisions possible for the international education sector. It resulted in the visa system being flooded with non-genuine students seeking not education but work rights—not seeking a premium Australian education but fraudulently seeking work rights in Australia. It turned our high-quality education sector into a visa rort.
The growth seen by the sector in this respect was unsustainable after COVID. In 2022, we announced the Parkinson Review of the Migration System to strengthen the integrity of our international education sector, which is so important for our country and our region. In 2023, we announced the Nixon Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System.
The Nixon review revealed shocking abuse of the student visa system. I really encourage members who haven't familiarised themselves with that work to look at the shocking details of that review. The review uncovered trafficking and migration and work scams by organised criminals syndicates.
It revealed education agents, migration agents and providers who were behaving outrageously and harming the sector's reputation. Those reviews made it clear that we had a problem with collusive and dodgy practices between some agents and some providers. To address the integrity issues found in these reviews, we moved quickly to act on a number of recommendations of both the Parkinson and Nixon reviews.
The problems caused by the coalition government, like the industrial-scale rort from the certificate-of-employment loophole and the proliferation of non-genuine student visa applications, have been fixed by these reforms, but the legacy of those bad policies of the former government has continued to haunt the nation. This bill is the next step to strengthen our international education sector and to provide the predictability and stability that the sector needs for ongoing, long-term success.
The government's legislative amendments to the ESOS Act and the TEQSA Act support the government's commitment to the quality, integrity and sustainability at all levels of the international education sector. The amendments are designed to provide oversight for offshore arrangements while also minimising the regulatory burden on Australian providers. Among other things, the bill strengthens trust in Australian education providers overseas.
It safeguards our reputation as a world leader in education. The amendments mean that students who study with an Australian provider overseas can have the same confidence in the quality of an Australian qualification as those who study here. The changes to the ESOS Act will address the exploitative behaviour found in the Nixon review.
They will combat exploitation of overseas students and address behaviours that seek to take advantage of our migration system. Secondly, we are providing predictability and stability to the education sector by ensuring those in the sector invest in student accommodation and diversify their student intake from countries across the Indo-Pacific region. In August, the government made clear that universities who wish to apply for growth in their international student allocation for 2026 need to demonstrate their engagement with South-East Asia and make tangible commitments to increase the number of students onshore.
We know that Australia's prosperity is tied to South-East Asia. That's why we're focused on the universities increasing engagement with South-East Asian nations. We must harness South-East Asia's growth and continue to ensure we are educating South-East Asia's leaders of the future.
South-East Asia as a bloc is projected to become the world's fourth-largest economy by 2040. It's a centre of global activity and business—one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. So, by 2040, the region will be an economic powerhouse, fuelled by demographics, industrialisation, urbanisation and technological advances.
The South-East Asia economic strategy to 2040 outlines how we can harness this growth and seize the vast two-way trade and investment opportunities our diverse and vibrant region presents. For decades we have educated the South-East Asian leaders of the future in Australia, through international education. Those leaders have come to Australia and then brought the education they gained here back to their home countries.
They've gone on to be leaders in politics, business and civil society. It has been a boon for our country. Unfortunately, this is increasingly a story of the past, not the present.
Enrolments from South-East Asian countries in Australian universities now represent only about 14 per cent of total onshore students. Given the size and opportunity of South-East Asia, this just isn't enough. We need to continue to deepen our relationship with the region's leaders through international education in Australia.
We need to diversify, too, the international education market, to ensure we're offering a higher education experience with students from many different countries contributing to life on campus—an international experience of campus life, not a homogenous experience. That's why these reforms are so significant. They support the sector's resilience through diversification of source markets for international students.
For universities that means investing in student exchange, research partnerships and internships and engaging alumni in scholarships. These reforms will drive economic growth in Australia and in our region, upskill and build human capital, deepen people-to-people links and support two-way cultural exchanges with South-East Asia. We're already seeing some success in this regard.
Many universities are already deepening their engagement with South-East Asia. Universities are investing in things like growing offshore delivery of qualifications; regional engagement through targeted scholarships for students in South-East Asia; in-country staffing; and strategic partnerships, including alumni and industry networks to support sustained collaboration.
Currently, Australian branch campuses in South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean region already deliver to over 35,000 students. Last year, Australia established the highest number of new branch campuses in the region in a single year since the first was established over three decades ago. Curtin University has campuses and partnerships in Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and Sri Lanka.
James Cook University offers programs in Singapore. RMIT has two campuses in Vietnam—one in Ho Chi Minh City and one in Hanoi. Deakin University's is the first foreign university campus to open in India in Gujarat in GIFT City.
In Indonesia, Monash University has opened a campus in Tangerang. Western Sydney University has opened a campus in Surabaya. Deakin University, in partnership with Lancaster University, has opened one in Bandung.
And, as announced by Prime Minister Albanese just this week, Monash University is opening a new campus in Malaysia. I want to particularly congratulate Monash University on this forward-looking billion-dollar investment in South-East Asia, and I want to congratulate them on the extraordinary success that they have had with Monash University in Malaysia over nearly three decades.
I commend all the universities that have established these branch campuses for their leadership in the sector. The other part of the reforms announced in August are around building student accommodation in Australia to ensure students have access to safe and secure housing while they study there. Universities could apply to increase their individual higher education allocation for 2026 by demonstrating delivery on the provision of student accommodation as well.
It's welcome to hear there are now over 11,000 new beds under construction. More than 15,000 more have development approvals in place, on top of another 12,000 in the planning process. The universities are already responding positively to these reforms.
Five universities didn't apply for any growth in their student allocation in 2026. Thirty-two universities sought some increase. Now, out of the institutions that have sought growth for 2026, because of the initiatives that they were initiating, 31 of those 32 have been successful in increased allocation.
Their allocations have been driven by their investments in South-East Asia economic engagement and in student housing. We're already seeing how these incentives are affecting the sector. In the allocation, regional universities have secured strong growth, consistent with the government's policies to share the benefits of international education.
Charles Sturt, Federation, Newcastle and Charles Darwin universities have secured the highest proportional growth in their allocations. Clearly, international education is significant for Australia. These reforms, the latest of a series of reforms to one of the most vital Australian export industries, one of the most vital sources of Australian influence around the world, particularly in our region, have all been about ensuring that we continue to deliver high-quality, trusted education to international students.
It's significant for our prosperity. It's significant for our influence and our relationships around the world. It's important that our international education sector remains strong and resilient.
Our world-class international education sector is a great thing for Australia. It's something that we can all be proud of. We encourage universities to keep rising to this challenge and protecting our reputation for excellence abroad.