E&OEÌý
PRUE BENTLEY: One Nation unveiled their immigration policy, which pledges to cut intake by 750,000 over three years. In particular, for their plan, they would have student visas capped at about a third of the current intake and a new visa category created for so-called high value students. The idea they say is to create more sustainable growth. But what does that mean for universities, including those in the country? ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº has already spoken out against this policy. Their CEO is Luke Sheehy. Hello, Luke.ÌýÌý
LUKE SHEEHY: Hello Prue.Ìý
PRUE BENTLEY: What do you make of this proposal? University students have come under fire for their numbers and impact on, say, for example, rental properties, particularly in the cities. Is this different?ÌýÌýÌý
LUKE SHEEHY: Look, I think this is just One Nation joining what Labor and the Coalition have already started years ago, which is a race to the bottom in a political fight on migration. And unfortunately, international students are now becoming increasingly collateral damage. And this is really bad news, particularly in the state of Victoria, where international education generates nearly $18 billion in revenue for this state. And we all know Victoria, my home state as well, needs as much revenue as it can get. International education also supports 69,000 Victorian jobs. So, slashing the numbers is going to slash that income. It’s going to put jobs at risk, and it’s going to put our wonderful regional universities at risk as well. Federation University serving Ballarat and Gippsland at the same time. We’ve got La Trobe in Bendigo, Charles Sturt University up in Albury, just on our doorstep, and of course the wonderful Deakin University in Geelong and across the western part of Victoria.Ìý
Regional universities are the backbone of regional communities in Victoria, and international education helps keep those universities open and serve our communities, particularly the thousands of Australian students that go there.Ìý
PRUE BENTLEY: There are those who would say we should be training up people at home rather than importing students from overseas. What do you make of that argument?Ìý
LUKE SHEEHY: I think this point often mistakes what’s actually happening. For nearly four decades, governments of both political colours, both state and federal governments, have asked universities to enrol more international students. Why? Because it provides essential revenue to run our universities. And what they’ve done is they have able to get a cut price deal for the taxpayer to run a world-class university system. We’re not jeopardising the number of Australian students we can teach, but we’ve opened the doors to students from nearly 140 countries to our universities, and it’s become an important part of the way we fund universities. If we didn’t have international students, someone would have to pay the gap between what international students pay now and what they wouldn’t pay if you slash the numbers. And that’s a question for government because I don’t want to see a system that slugs students thousands of dollars more to get a degree when they’re already paying in some circumstances nearly $55,000 for a three-year degree.Ìý
PRUE BENTLEY: One Nation said that universities that provide student housing for international students would be given priority. Is that something that needs to be considered?Ìý
LUKE SHEEHY: What I haven’t seen in One Nation’s race to the bottom and the joining of the conga line with the major parties on this issue is any example of how they’re going to fund capital so universities can get into building more purpose-built student accommodation and partnering with businesses and other providers to produce that housing. It’s really important that you think about all the unintended and intended consequences of just ripping the numbers out of the system overnight. We have a fantastic world-class education system in Australia. And in fact, in Victoria, it’s one of the great success stories, one of the great export industries for our state. If you slash the number of international students overnight, you simply cannot ask universities to do more with less. We already have a funding problem at the domestic level and slashing the numbers is only going to make it worse. My message is pretty clear to One Nation, Pauline Hanson, to the Prime Minister and to the Leader of the Opposition — if you want a world-class education system and a world-class university system for Victoria and beyond, you’re going to have to work out a way to pay for it. And slashing the number of international students might look good in a press release, might look good in an election year, but it will have unintended consequences that will take us decades to fix.Ìý
PRUE BENTLEY: Luke, thank you very much for your time today.ÌýÌý
LUKE SHEEHY: Great to be with you.Ìý
ENDSÌýÌýÌý
