Jason Clare Bingo – play along at home

Right now, after some years of slog, it would be possible to argue that Education Minister is one of the easiest jobs in Australian politics.

For his first couple of years in office, he pushed to address sexual assault and staff underpayment on campus – rightly identifying two important issues that had been widely mishandled.

That crusade left campus leaders in a bind – unable to criticise because they were being called out for their own, highly-publicised errors, and yet also a little bit in love with the smooth speeches from the Member for Blaxland, who was promising to transform the sector so it would be better for all, with his long-awaited Accord.

Having done the hard yards and launched the Accord to an admiring sector in early 2024, he and the rest of the front bench were presumably confronted, by party polling which said the survival of the government depended on being seen to act on cost of living, which had suddenly become a bigger issue than Gaza, climate change or pretty much anything for much of middle Australia.

Bashing the supermarkets helped let off a little steam, but the politics of otherness has repeatedly trumped most other base causes in Australian politics, whether you think of the Tampa election, the reds under the beds, the White Australia Policy or dozens of other micro issues in the electoral cycle. There are votes in singling out a group of people and blaming them.

While grocery prices are bad, rent hikes and housing availability is worse, meaning the Government grasped not just for constructive policy initiatives, but also a blame-based defensive strategy.

Housing policy in Australia is a shambles – we have some of the most expensive housing in the world compared to average incomes; a chronic shortage of builders and tradies (130,000 workers short this year), the CFMEU building union has been devastated by bullying and corruption allegations and is in administration and we currently have the lowest number of new homes being built in more than a decade.

Despite this evidence, the Government then found the furious, housing-aggrieved public a useful scapegoat in international students, saying they were to blame for high rents – with a supporting chorus from the Opposition.

The Education Minister’s job is made easier, because the alternative Government led by Peter Dutton want to cut international student numbers even deeper and Mr Dutton has described international students as ‘the modern day version of boat arrivals.’ FYI, from a man who built his political career championing action to stop the boats, this is not a compliment.

The Property Council, National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and many others called out the claim, leading the Department of Education to try to ride to the rescue, releasing a fact sheet that indicated a link between international student rental demand and affordability in some suburbs particularly inner city Melbourne and Sydney. Not quite enough to justify the ‘boat people’ tag, but a valiant attempt in comms terms, nonetheless.

Which brings us to this week. Mr Clare’s job is to blame international students for Australia’s housing woes to justify drastic and rapid cuts to international student enrolments. The intent is to show that the Government is achieving policy success by singling out a marginalised group who won’t trouble the government electorally, managing to balance the apparent contradiction of welcoming hundreds of thousands of international students still enrolled next year, while simultaneously saying they are the root cause of Australia’s ills and their compatriots are strictly banned. This would be challenging if there was a requirement for messaging coherence in Australian politics across audiences, but thankfully for Mr Clare that is not a requirement.

With the serious reform challenges of the Accord mostly out the window, and a few crumbs from next year’s budget kept aside to maintain an illusion of commitment, Mr Clare, an outstanding political performer, has an all too easy job, continuing to point out the sector’s failings to itself and keeping a ‘tough on shonks’ persona ready for the electorate, with the heavy lifting of sector transformation safely off the agenda.

Which brings us to this week.

This week Mr Clare has agreed to address the juggernaut that is the AIEC conference. Assuming we take a paint-by-the-numbers approach to speech development, we have prepared a bingo card predictor for the messaging (AIEC punters are going to be set against or secretly in love with Mr Clare depending on the caps levied to their institution, so no need to try to convert anyone). When all boxes are ticked, yell ’Show us your polling,’ or alternatively return to scrolling through your superannuation balance to make sure your home life remains fully-funded.

Jason Clare bingo

Bold predictions of what you will hear in his next speech:

1. A lot has happened since I was here last year…
2. We realise this has been a challenging time for you which is why we have consulted …
3. (insert complimentary reference to programs from pro-cap unis – esp Newcastle, Tasmania, Wollongong)
4. ‘Shonky’ providers – who are partly to blame for the caps (ie people not in the room)
5. The Coalition let too many students in and we are fixing it
6. The Albanese Government is restoring balance
7. Rankings don’t matter, its what universities do for Australian communities that matter
8. More people from western Sydney need to have the chance to have ‘a crack’
9. Universities are losing their social licence and the government is saving them
10. Universities and TAFEs are ‘agents for change’
11. Growing up in Western Sydney I…
12. I am the first person in my family to finish high school…
13. International students are critical to Australia’s future, but…
14. The Coalition want to cut even more and
15. Peter Dutton called them ‘boat arrivals.’ (we are much more polite).