Final roundtable with the Student Accommodation Council, response to the ATEC and MGFS consultation papers: Latest rundown of higher education

From the Chief Executive Officer

I have just returned from the final roundtable in the series we’ve hosted this week and last with the Student Accommodation Council to bring our members together with theirs to discuss ways to boost the supply of student accommodation. This is in response to the accommodation requirements under the Government’s plan to cap international student enrolments. We all know that building new student accommodation can’t happen overnight and these sessions, hosted in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, have been valuable exercises in establishing the barriers to construction and ways the Government can assist. We will be engaging with key Ministers on this moving forward. My thanks to all of our members for participating in these sessions.?

In Canberra, we have continued to work on our response to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) and Managed Growth Funding Strategy (MGFS) consultation papers. I have spent much of this week canvassing views across the sector on these major structural reforms in preparation for the UA Board meeting next week, at which we will consider a set of guiding principles to frame our final response. I have a briefing scheduled with senior government relations and policy staff on Monday and I look forward to hearing more viewpoints.

On the MGFS specifically, we are concerned that the paper, as written, hardly demonstrates the Government’s stated intent of growing the system in the coming decades. I have made this point to both the Minister’s office and the department and have been reassured that the language in the paper will be updated to reflect the need for growth if we are to meet the skills targets outlined in the Accord final report.

As of today, we have another piece of the puzzle, the needs-based funding consultation paper, which we are currently dissecting. We have distributed a brief to members this morning and we will be engaging with members on this in due course. The Board will discuss this, along with the papers on ATEC and managed growth, on Thursday, and I will also be meeting with the Implementation Advisory Group on Friday as part of the consultation process.

On the international education front, we are continuing our work behind the scenes to mobilise support for the sector ahead of the ESOS Bill hitting the Senate next month. I met earlier this week with the CEO of Tourism & Transport Forum Australia, Margy Osmond, and have been in regular contact with Bran Black from the Business Council of Australia, whose recent contributions to the debate have been most helpful.?

I wrote formally this week to my counterparts at the major business, employer and tourism groups, enlisting their support for our sector and they are on board. A poorly thought through limit on international student enrolments is not in the interest of universities, business or tourism and I look forward to engaging fully with these groups in the coming weeks as we seek to influence the passage of legislation in the upper house.?

It is a very busy time for our sector, and I want to thank you all for your engagement with us and your contributions to our policy and advocacy work. We are stronger working together, so let’s keep it up. My door is always open, and my phone is always on. Please don’t hesitate to reach out at any time.

I’ll leave it there for today. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Luke Sheehy

Chief Executive Officer, Universities Australia