The Albanese Government announced it will allow an additional 25,000 international student enrollments next year in a bid to support universities and restore confidence in the 50-billion-dollar industry. Then at the same time, long overdue national code to prevent and respond to gender based violence in universities, but that’s just past Parliament, prompted by very damning testimony about how institutions have failed victim survivors in our culture of neglect and bureaucracy continues to traumatize them, or re traumatize them, if you like. So to discuss, we’re joined in the studio by the Shadow Minister for Immigration, Senator Paul Scarr, who joins me live and sitting with me, and that’s very nice to see you in the flesh.
Senator Scarr
Well, it’s great to see you, Tim, and it’s great to be in the safety of the studio with what’s happening on the roads outside.
Tim Webster
Keep away from all that.
Senator Scarr
Absolutely.
Tim Webster
Now, a few things to discuss with you. Migration, a big issue at the moment, Australia grapples with the housing crisis and how you house people and give them somewhere to live. An additional 25,000 international students. Is that growth manageable?
Senator Scarr
So Tim, the Albanese Labor Government has announced this increase of 25,000 so it goes from 270,000 to 295,000 international student visas being issued in a year. What we’re saying is there needs to be far more transparency as to how these figures are set. Why the increase? What was the basis for the increase? And we also need to consider things like what is happening at our regional universities. Because, remember, we have universities all through Australia. We have universities in regional centers, but we also have them in our major capital cities. We also need to know what’s happening in terms of some of our more specialist, advanced courses, which are really important courses with limited spaces, and how that fits in the mix. And ultimately, we need to come up with a policy that is predictable and sustainable in the long term national interests. And certainly, the Coalition will be engaging with all stakeholders to come up with that policy. And also we need to make sure that there’s integrity in the system, so people who are coming here as students are coming for the primary purpose. The purpose is to get an education. And that’s all very good, and that’s correct, and it is a really important industry for Australia, 50 billion dollars. So we’ve got to get this policy right. Tim.
Tim Webster
Yeah, it’s big business, but sometimes you’ve got to separate the business from the reality, don’t you? By the way, those students post COVID… Are some of those returning students, or are we adding more students? Because in COVID, it did drop off, didn’t it?
Senator Scarr
Yeah, and I think this is important point to make Tim, in terms of the immigration debate. So, the first two years coming out of the COVID pandemic, there was a real whipsaw effect, as there was a huge increase in terms of net overseas migration. But during those covid years, as we remember, with the lockdowns and the borders closed, net overseas migration actually fell quite materially. So there’s been this whipsaw effect. Where we need to get to is long term numbers which are predictable and sustainable in the national interest.
Tim Webster
Now my listeners are going to ask. So I’ll ask you, are international students taking precedence over our own?
Senator Scarr
No. It shouldn’t work that way, Tim. It really shouldn’t work that way. So, I’m firmly of the view that every Australian, young Australian, or doesn’t matter how old you are, you might be looking to change your career, etc. Every Australian who can meet the requisite qualification or standard in terms of studying in our universities should have the opportunity to study in our universities. So I think that’s really, really important. One of the things I’ve been frustrated about Tim, to be frank – I meet people who have studied, they are outstanding students, and they’re fallen just short of getting into study, say, medicine, or some of those health fields, and you look at the skill shortages, and you think, well, if the person’s got the ability to do it, but they’re just locked out because there isn’t that extra 10 or 50 or 100 places. That’s not really in the national interest, right? Because we need more health specialists. We need more doctors, especially in our regional areas.
Tim Webster
Well, yeah, we call this Canberra Conversations, by the way, and this is probably a conversation for another time. But you’ve got all of those issues of getting doctors to go to the bush and all of these things. And we think to ourselves, well, why can’t we get that to happen? As we know, people like to cling to the coast, incentives for them to go to the bush. I mean, all of these things – it’s a big topic,
Senator Scarr
Just quickly on that point. You find students who enrol in medicine from regional areas are the most likely to go back to those regional areas. So anything we can do to actually boost the opportunity for young people who live in our regions to study medicine, I think, is one of the ways to address that address that issue.
Tim Webster
It’s funny you should mention that, because when I was at school, which is some time ago. A couple of the blokes who were borders at my school did exactly that. Trained at university, I think one was a doctor, the other one was in the law, and they both went back to their country town, so that’s great. Now we’ve got this case of a backlog of visas and falling behind on ambitious housing targets, as we all know. I just don’t think we’re to get there with that target. So, tell me about Ministerial Direction 111, which gave the government the ability to slow visa processing and impose some caps.
Senator Scarr
This is an interesting issue, and I think, obviously the government is doing what it thinks it should be doing in terms of managing these processes. But the point you came back to me with in terms of housing is really important. So the government set a target of 1.2 million homes to build by 2029 and The Property Council of Australia, their research indicates that they’re going to fall short of that at the moment by about 460,000, and one of the issues is the skill shortage. So there’s actually 100,000 less people in apprenticeships and training in Australia at the moment than there was in the last year of the Coalition Government. And yet we have this huge skill shortage and this huge need to build more infrastructure in my home state of Queensland, it’s the Olympics 2032 which is pretty close, and we need to build more houses. So there’s all these disconnects across the different policy areas.
Tim Webster
Yeah, to be really simplistic, where are the chippies and the plumbers coming from?
Senator Scarr
Exactly, Tim.
Tim Webster
To your work in the Senate. You spoke about the new National code to address gender based violence in universities, which is just abhorrent. Now that the legislation has passed, what’s the most urgent challenges in making sure we actively, you know protect students from all of that.
Senator Scarr
Tim, this is a really important issue, and I chaired a Senate inquiry that looked at sexual assault in the Australian community and how the law responds. And one of the things we found in the university sector, one out of 20 students reported that they’d been subject to sexual assault. One out of 20. Now that’s an extraordinary figure. And then we when we heard evidence from those who support victims, victim survivors of sexual assault, we heard that the universities were not acting, not responding in the right way, and in many cases, and this is quite distressing. In many cases, the victims were actually re traumatized by the process the university put them through. And this includes everything from the way in which they were conducting interviews with them, totally inappropriate practices, all the way through to not providing flexibility in terms of their tutorials, etc. So in some cases, victim survivors were left to be sitting in the same room as the person who allegedly assaulted them. Just really, really terrible bureaucratic obstruction. An inappropriate response to these really important issues. One of the things that came out of that inquiry was there needed to be some sort of independent body that was holding the universities to account, so a student, if they weren’t happy with how it was being treated, could go to the body. We now have a national student ombudsman, which is going to be that body, and this code was introduced last week, which basically sets the standard with respect to how the university should respond to these serious matters, and one of the key responses is to make sure that the victim survivor is at the center of the process, and you’re considering their welfare, you’re considering their welfare, Tim, because so many people have dropped out of university and been left traumatized because they’ve been the victim of asexual assault and the university hasn’t responded appropriately. So this is really important for our children, for our grandchildren. We want to make sure they’re safe on our university campuses, and it’s a positive experience.
Tim Webster
End Rape On Campus has now closed its doors. So with that watchdog gone, who holds the universities to account when they fail the victim survivors. I mean, this can’t just be, you know, tick the box!
Senator Scarr
So, End Rape On Campus was a wonderful bunch of people who set up this advocacy system. So they were basically holding the hand of someone who was the subject of one of these assaults and helping them through the process. Now that the National Student Ombudsman has been set up, that’s what they were advocating for. So that has now been set up. This code has been introduced, there’s going to be public reporting with respect to incidents of sexual assault and how that tracks now that this new system has been introduced, and hopefully we’ve got to see this come down. Tim. I come back to that extraordinary figure, one out of 20. It’s absolutely horrifying. It is not acceptable, and we’ve got to make sure the new system works.
Tim Webster
Yeah, all right. Now tell us about this wonderful, professional podcast of yours!
Senator Scarr
We’re continuing the Canberra Conversations, and we’re doing our best to shine a light with respect to the sorts of things that are happening in Canberra. So our last one, we actually had my local mayor, the Mayor of Ipswich region, up in Queensland, the fastest growing part of Queensland, huge population growth, but it hasn’t had the infrastructure to support that population growth. So a really good chat with Teresa about what local government does in terms of engaging with the federal government in terms of trying to get its fair share with respect to funding on infrastructure and things like that. So we’re trying to show what’s happening behind the scenes, what happens in the corridors of power. Tim, what happens in the corridors of power?
Tim Webster
I think that’s fantastic. And of course, you can have that conversation with me as well.
Senator Scarr
Absolutely. And I enjoy every conversation I have with you, Tim, and especially face to face.
Tim Webster
Well, you know, I’m a Queenslander.
Senator Scarr
Yeah. Well, absolutely, absolutely,.
Tim Webster
Except, except at Origin time.
Senator Scarr
Oh, okay, all right. Maybe if you’d left that last phrase off, Tim.
Tim Webster
I came here when I was about one!
Senator Scarr
Oh, okay, there you go.
Tim Webster
It was great to see you. Thanks for coming and thanks very much for coming in too.
Senator Scarr
Good on you. Thanks. Tim.
