The Government’s plans to cap international enrolments at universities is “draconian, interventionist and amounts to economic vandalism,“ the Group of Eight’s Vicki Thomson told a Senate committee yesterday. However, Ms Thomson was careful to specify that “public providers” should be exempt from any cap in the legislation now before the Senate – which would leave private VET and HE colleges to take the hit.
And she offered the government an out – suggesting that it use existing powers to work with universities … “and target levels of enrolment appropriate to each institution.”
Universities Australia head Luke Sheehy was equally frank, calling the cap, “ministerial overreach to an extent we have never seen before.” He warned the bill, “is more a political smokescreen than an instrument for good policy as the Government seeks to gain an upper hand in a battle over migration ahead of the next election.”
“Chair, we must ask ourselves whether this critically important industry is worth less than the votes the Government is chasing at the polling booth on Election Day,” Mr Sheehy said.
They were both giving evidence to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee at its only scheduled hearing, with witnesses including Vice-Chancellors, private VET and HE lobbies and industry groups.
The big five universities by international enrolments were represented by Vice-Chancellors Duncan Maskell (Uni Melbourne), Sharon Pickering (Monash U) and Deborah Terry (Uni Queensland).
The generality of evidence across all witnesses reiterated the all-but-universal hostility of content of submissions based on institution and industry interests. Terri McDonald from the National Tertiary Education Union said that while the ministerial powers in the bill are presented as an “emergency power,” “once they are there as instruments, they can and will be used.”
The Committee is scheduled to report next week, but the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee already points to concerns with “the broad discretionary powers of the Minister.”
