Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (19:18): I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. This is a substantial bill. It changes the way Commonwealth supported university places are allocated.

It creates a new framework for controlling international student commencements, it establishes needs based funding arrangements and it gives significant new powers to the minister. When the bill first came before the House of Representatives, we, as the opposition, were strongly critical of aspects of this legislation. We pointed out the extraordinary ministerial powers.

We highlighted some of the concerns around needs based funding, and we looked at the way the bill used centralised control rather than competition and growth as a tool to drive the higher education sector. We also said that the bill offered pathways to resolve pressing and far-reaching problems that affect Australians outside the university sector. We spoke about uncontrolled migration and fracturing social cohesion on campus, driven, in particular, by antisemitism.

We spoke about a pathway to support higher education and also about support for regions. The coalition reserved its position on this bill to allow for detailed Senate scrutiny. We said that the legislation should be examined on its merits.

That was an appropriate course. I acknowledge Senator Marielle Smith, as chair of that committee, in the chamber today. We had a good examination of this bill through the inquiry that we had.

We said we would speak to the government and the sector in relation to this bill, and that's exactly what we've done. That scrutiny was very useful. The inquiry was very good.

However, it also exposed some serious defects that should be addressed. Therefore we will move some amendments to address some of those defects. There are also aspects of this bill which provide an opportunity to speak to coalition core equities around migration and support for the regions.

It's part of the very DNA of the coalition. We as the coalition will always stand for control of our borders. This bill gives a much more granular level of control over international student migration than has previously been the case.

That should not in any way be eroded. We as a coalition will always stand up for the regions. We have spoken with the government about this, and we will put forward a regional funding guarantee to lock funding to the regions so that regional actually means regional.

There are other amendments that we will put forward too, but, with the passage of the regional funding guarantee and the preservation of migration powers, this bill will pass with the coalition's support. Let me turn to some of the issues in detail. The first, and arguably the most important, issue addressed in this bill, relates to international students.

It's not controversial to say that management of the rate of migration is now one of the central challenges that Australia is facing today. All serious parties recognise that current levels of migration are unsustainably high, that net overseas migration must come down and that international education must play its part. All serious parties in this place recognise that this must be done in a very measured way that preserves our institutions, particularly in the regions.

It must also meet the pressing need to bring the NOM, net overseas migration, levels down. The bill attempts to bring international student migration under control through a clear statutory framework. The bill creates an international allocation pool determination.

The minister will be able to determine the overall number of international student commencements in higher education. In effect, this means that the bill transitions the international student visa system from an uncapped to a capped system, insofar as it relates to higher education. The powers in this bill go further than setting a national number.

The minister can prescribe matters with which ATEC must comply, in effect giving directions about how the allocation should occur. The framework permits differentiation between providers. It permits differentiation between classes of students, and it allows particular cohorts to be excluded from the cap, all of which means that the minister of the day can shape both the scale and the composition of international education.

It means that the minister will be able to respond to excessive international student growth at individual institutions, distinguish between different parts of the sector and, importantly, align international student commencements more closely with Australia's broader economic skills and our migration priorities. Importantly, the minister of the day has flexibility, where he or she can intervene to ask that allocations be varied.

This means that the level of international student migration can be varied to meet community expectations and to align with impacts on services and infrastructure. This is a very constructive change. It is surprising and, in fact, rather extraordinary, that Labor has downplayed this point.

It has received minimal attention from Labor. The committee hearing on this issue was entirely lopsided. Coalition senators raised this point consistently, and, from my reading, Labor senators raised the issue of international students just once, only in response to some questions from, I think, Senator Scarr, to clarify the answer.

It is a major part of this bill. It has significant flow-on impacts for our universities, our cities, our infrastructure, our housing and our services. It's rather an extraordinary thing to downplay.

The second major issue is regional higher education. Regional universities and regional campuses are essential to the ongoing livelihood of our regions, but the simple truth is that delivering higher education in regions costs more. The cohorts are smaller.

There are greater difficulties recruiting staff. There is often recruitment sometimes set down in state and territory laws to maintain facilities across multiple campuses or sustain a breadth of course offerings beyond really what is economically viable. We on this side of the chamber recognise this.

This bill also recognises this or at least attempts to do so. The regional component of needs based funding is expressly intended to offset the higher costs of regional delivery. The intent is sound, but there are two major loopholes in this bill as drafted.

First, the definition of a high-priority area was not confined to regional, remote or very remote Australia. It would have allowed the minister to specify any area that they want to set as a high-priority area. This could be Glebe in Sydney or Parkville in Melbourne.

Second, the bill allows regional funding to go to a university if it has a course that is 'administered in the regions'. In other words, on paper, what the bill allows for is a university to set up a course that is administered in a regional area but actually delivered in a metro tower in a city. That course would be eligible for regional funding.

These two loopholes undermine the intent and the purpose of regional funding. They really should be closed. Regional should mean regional; it's not that profound.

The coalition will introduce its regional funding guarantee to ensure that this is the case. They are the key benefits of this bill, but, as I said, there are also some obvious downsides. The third main issue in this bill is its chief downside, which relates to student choice.

This deserves more attention. There is no real question that this legislation reduces choice for Australian students. The evidence has been clear and consistent to this point.

Why? It's because the bill tries to prevent so-called overenrolment. Overenrolment occurs when a provider offers more places than its government funding allocation covers.

There are good reasons for permitting over enrolment for the taxpayer. It means educating more students for the same amount of taxpayer money. It means economies of scale for the university.

It means being able to respond to student demand, and there is flexibility to respond to factors beyond the university's control. For the student, it means that they are more likely to be able to study at the university of their first preference, because there are more places that are on offer. Provided that a university can deliver an appropriate standard of instruction, overenrolment can serve a valuable purpose.

I realise that we're about to adjourn, so I will continue my comments when I get the opportunity at a later time. Thank you very much. Debate adjourned.