Opposition blocks government cap on international students

International students eyeing Australia can heave a sigh of relief as the country’s two leading political parties have decided to block the government’s bid to slash the number of international student enrolments at universities in the country.

The Labor government had planned to limit the number of international students able to start studying in Australia from next year to 270,000. Legislation in this regard needed the support of other parties in the Senate before it could be passed into law.

However, with just two weeks of parliament left before the 1 January 2025 start date, the opposition’s Coalition and Greens declared outright opposition to the “chaotic and confused” bill that would give the education minister the power to set international student caps.

The Coalition is an alliance of centre-right political parties, the Liberal Party and the National Party, while the Greens – Australia’s third largest political party – is more left-wing and ecologically focused. The ruling, left-of-centre Labor Party has a slim majority in the House of Representatives but only about a third of the seats in the Senate.

Unprecedented chaos in international education

The Coalition and the Greens declared their stance in statements issued simultaneously on Monday 18 November.

“The proposed cap in the education bill before parliament will not even touch the sides of this problem,” said the Coalition’s shadow minister for education Sarah Henderson, shadow minister for home affairs James Paterson, and shadow minister for immigration and citizenship Dan Tehan.

The Coalition charged the Labor government of exacerbating the housing crisis and causing unprecedented chaos in the international education sector by initially doubling the number of international student enrolments from 474,493 in May 2022 to more than 800,000 now.

Pointing to the proposed caps on international students as a government move to curtail migration, it charged that Labor’s approach does nothing to address it.

“The proposed cap in the education bill before Parliament will not even touch the sides of this problem.

“We cannot support measures that will only serve to compound this crisis of the government’s making. Based on their record so far, we have absolutely no confidence the government is capable of fixing its immigration mess,” the Coalition said.

On the other hand, the Greens party, which has long been opposed to the cap, labelled it “reckless and chaotic”.

Mehreen Faruqi, deputy leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for higher education, welcomed the Coalition joining hands to oppose the bill and eventually make it impossible for the government to pass it.

“This is a win for the tertiary sector. This is a win for staff in the tertiary sector. This is a win for international students who have been unfairly scapegoated and targeted by the Labor government,” she said.

The Greens assert that the proposed cap on international student enrolments harmed international students and Australia’s reputation, besides causing massive job and economic losses.

What comes next

What is the likely scenario now?

The decisive pushback from the Coalition and Greens has evidently upset the champion of the proposed caps, Minister for Education Justin Clare. In his initial reaction to the opposition, he expressed surprise at the Greens and the Coalition joining hands on this matter.

“Over the course of the next few months, Peter Dutton [leader of the opposition in parliament] is going to wander around the country pretending to be a tough guy on immigration,” he said.

The proposed bill would have given Clare wide powers to cap international student enrolments It is pivotal to note that the Greens and Coalition hold a majority in the Senate, so Labor is unable to proceed with legislation in the current scenario.

In a likely scenario now, according to education expert Andrew Norton, professor in the practice of higher education policy at Australian National University, Labor will not be able to repeal Ministerial Direction 107, a decision by former home affairs minister Clare O’Neil in December 2023 around the processing of student visa applications.

It prioritises processing student and student guardian visas based on the risk level of education providers and a student’s country of citizenship.

“Ministerial Direction 107 is widely hated by international education providers. They blame it for student numbers and revenues falling in 2024.

“While the direction undoubtedly delays visa processing for higher-risk providers, its effects are conflated with the multiple other changes to visa policy since late 2023,” Norton wrote in a commentary in The Conversation.

“Ending Ministerial Direction 107 would still leave in place changes such as student visa applicants needing to prove a higher financial capacity, increased English language requirements, more than doubling the non-refundable visa application fee, and restrictions on onshore student visa applications,” she noted.

Students the ‘scapegoats’ in migration debate

Clearly annoyed by politicisation of the entire process, various peak bodies of universities in Australia were relieved by the Coalition’s opposition to introducing the cap.

Group of Eight (Go8) Chief Executive Vicki Thomson regretted that international students became the ‘scapegoat’ in a politically motivated migration debate.

In a statement on Monday she said: “A bill intended to weed out shonky and dodgy providers developed into a genuine threat to Australia’s most successful services export worth US$51 billion, international education,” she said.

“There’s no question we need to have a discussion about how we manage the sector going forward – including timely and fair visa processing procedures for international students – but importantly, we need to recognise how we got into this position,” she added.

Luke Sheehy, chief executive of Universities Australia, said that blaming international students on the housing issue and migration is just plain “wrong. In an election year, both sides of politics need to ask themselves: ‘Do they want to invest in the future, or do they want to continue this phoney war right through to an election?’”

With the bill still before parliament, some universities have proceeded with 2025 enrolments, while others have paused international student applications and opened up waitlists in a bid to avoid going over the indicative caps they had been supplied, reported the public broadcaster ABC.

“Labor hoped to bring temporary migration numbers back to pre-pandemic levels and crack down on dodgy education providers by limiting the number of international students able to start study in Australia to 270,000 next year,” ABC noted.

“Both major parties have said they want to see a lower net overseas migration, which includes international students. The government said it expects the figure to be 260,000 over the financial year, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said his party would aim for ‘about 160,000’,” ABC stated.