Ministerial Direction 107, 2024 Shaping Australia Awards, Times Higher Education Summit Live event: Latest rundown of higher education
From the Chief Executive Officer
Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great week – they are just flying by at the moment with so much happening. With just four parliamentary sitting weeks remaining this year, we are noticing both major parties shifting more into election mode as we head toward the mid-year budget update (due in early December). This week, we learned the Government is in a stronger than expected budget position due to an unexpected decline in government spending, with the forecast surplus of $9.3 billion in the May budget likely to be closer to the mid-teens. This gives the Government flexibility to spend more in MYEFO.
Given the current economic climate, any additional spending is likely to be on cost-of-living support measures as the Government seeks to shore up its vote ahead of the election. That said, from my conversations with Minister Jason Clare MP around the Budget in May, we do know there is significant money reserved for a new funding model for higher education. It remains to be seen whether we will see that in the mid-year budget update. We’ll continue to gather intel on this and more as we head toward the end of the year.
Staying on politics, opposition leader Peter Dutton has stepped up his rhetoric on immigration in the last couple of days, particularly around international students. Yesterday, Mr Dutton described the increase in student visa appeals as the “modern version of boat arrivals”, in comments echoing Tony Abbott’s 2013 campaign vow “to stop the boats”. As if we needed any further proof – immigration will be a central issue as we head toward the next election. We are continuing our engagement with parliamentarians of all persuasions on this important issue and have this week lodged a supplementary submission to the Committee scrutinising the ESOS Bill, again calling for the immediate removal of Ministerial Direction 107. On MD107, UA has conducted some analysis of its impact at an electoral level and found that Labor-held seats are the hardest hit by this damaging instrument. We will be using this in our advocacy moving forward.
On other submissions, we are finalising our feedback on the legislation to underpin the National Student Ombudsman and expect to also appear at a public hearing as part of the inquiry into the bill in the coming weeks. While we are, of course, supportive of any initiative to improve student safety, there are aspects of the legislation, particularly in relation to the broadening of powers, that we feel require deeper consideration than is possible in the time given. We will be making this point to the Committee in our submission.
I’m delighted to say we’re well underway for delivering this year’s Shaping Australia Awards. Entries close next week on the 2 October. So far, we’ve received 100 entries from 28 member universities – a great result. Lisa Paul AO PSM will again chair the judging panel and will be joined by:
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We’ll open submissions for the People’s Choice award on 9 October. We’re all very excited at UA about the awards. They are a critical part of our communication strategy to promote the contribution universities make to people and the nation, and an important underpinning of the Universities Matter campaign.?
With everything else going on, I appeared before the inquiry into the Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024 on Tuesday and used the opportunity to communicate to the committee some of our concerns around the redistribution of SSAF revenue and the proposed administration of the Commonwealth Prac Payment. Overall, though, this is a piece of legislation we have and will continue to welcome due to its strong focus on supporting students in this tough economic environment.
I have been in Newcastle for the last couple of days for the Times Higher Education Summit Live event and spoke on a panel yesterday about the impact of international student caps. There is still plenty of life in the debate!
I’ll leave it there for today. I hope you all have a great weekend!
Chief Executive Officer, Universities Australia
Associate Professor - Internships at The University of Western Australia
2 个月As a Western Australian one is greatly surprised, if not dumbfounded, by the release of the new overseas student caps (NOSC) that will be enforced as from 2025 for Australian universities. My analysis of two states who sit to the west of Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland reveals that the NOSC for Adelaide based universities are to increase by 1,385 places (or +15.48%) whilst Perth based universities will decrease by 2,491 places (or -15.48%). in 2025. In 2025, The University of Western Australia is the can, sorry campus, being kicked down the road by the Federal Government in losing 2,140 new overseas student places (i.e., the second highest fall of 41.63% after the University of New South Wales at 45.27%). Someone in the Federal Labor Party must have forgotten that Western Australia was the state that delivered electoral success for them in 2022. I will be lobbying my local Federal Parliamentarians on this and I urge all other Western Australians to do the same.
Visiting Fellow, School of History, Australian National University
2 个月Given the way the increase in NOM reflects the growth in international student numbers it is now vital that the difference twixt international student visas and immigration visa must be clarified.