Plenary meeting at UNE, international education: Latest rundown of higher education

From the Chief Executive Officer

I have just returned to Canberra after a very successful couple of days in Armidale for our second Plenary meeting of the year at the University of New England (AU) . A big thank you to Chris Moran and the entire UNE team who made us feel at home. And thank you to all VCs and their delegates for your participation and, particularly, for your engagement. We covered a lot of ground, dissecting the 2024-25 Federal Budget and charting next steps in our engagement with Government on the Accord implementation, as well as considering the various pieces of work underway across university governance and international education. We have some solid signposts now to guide our actions from here.?

International education remains our main focus and I appreciate the frankness of the discussion we had yesterday around the challenges and consequences of the proposed changes to this crucial sector. I am continuing to communicate the sector’s concerns in our regular engagements at both the ministerial and department level, including at a meeting this morning of the Council for International Education. We are also continuing to ensure our members are closely involved in the consultations, including an additional briefing for Deputy Vice-Chancellors (International) this coming Monday.

As I have previously flagged, UA has been busy in the background liaising with key industry and political stakeholders to bolster our advocacy. In conjunction with the Property Council, we will be hosting roundtables in capital cities in July to discuss the Government’s requirements for universities to expand their housing provisions for international students. Further details of these sessions will be provided to members shortly.

We have also been mobilising the crossbench on this issue. I met today with Allegra Spender MP who expressed her concern for some of the more draconian aspects of the proposed legislative changes to the ESOS Act, namely the course-level caps. I will also be meeting separately with Zoe Daniel MP and Julian Hill MP next week on this very issue, and I look forward to briefing the full crossbench in a couple of weeks.

I am continuing to monitor protest activities on campuses and appreciate the calls and messages I am receiving from many of you keeping UA in the loop. This continues to be a major focus in politics and the media and will remain high on our agenda as events continue to play out around the country.?

Parliament sits again next week, and we’ll be closely monitoring Senate Estimates on your behalf, as well as any debate of the ESOS Act in the House of Representatives.

Thank you again for your continued engagement with us on the various hot issues dominating our landscape. UA’s door is always open, and I encourage you to continue to get in touch with me and the team.

Luke Sheehy

Chief Executive Officer, Universities Australia