Interview with Greg Jennett, ABC Afternoon Briefing

19 November 2024

GREG JENNETT: Caps on international student enrolments at unis and vocational courses appear doomed now that the Greens and the Coalition are both opposed to it. But progress will be made on donations, transparency and funding for political parties to explore them both. Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume is back with us. Jane, welcome to the programme Foreign student caps. First of all, the legislation doesn't set a number. It empowers the Minister of the day to set that number. Why not pass it and revisit a cap setting if you're in government?

JANE HUME: Greg, the number of students in Australia international students has run out of control under this Government. There's around 800,000 or so international students. Now, that's nearly double the amount that were in place in May 2022 when Labor came to power. There's about a million students, current and former, that are still here. And this is the problem. It's not about a cap on international students necessarily, just with the universities. It's also about those visas, the visa system that sits underneath it that is in complete disarray under Labor. So we now have students that are either claiming asylum or that are on a bridging visa that are awaiting a response or are on Covid work visas. Still, there's around 30,000 of those. Still, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We want to see the problem addressed in a systemic way.

GREG JENNETT: That might be the case, and you can approach it systemically, but into the future. There will always be, won't there, a student visa category. And if you're going to cap it, you're going to have to arrive at a number. So in relation to the 270,000, which is the figure behind the Government's proposal, higher or lower?

JANE HUME: Well, this has been dealt with the universities but not with the service providers, the private providers and the regional and rural universities too. And of course, unless there's been appropriate consultation with those two parts of the sector, well, you're only really, you know, playing favourites with, just university students…

GREG JENNETT: They don't get to set the number though do they. That's up to responsible governments.

JANE HUME: But it must be done in consultation. We want international students here. We want to attract the best and the brightest. But the problem is the system has been allowed to run out of control. We think that this piecemeal approach to legislation is actually going to make the situation worse and not better. And in the meantime that burgeoning number of international students is pushing up rent prices, pushing up housing prices. It's causing detrimental problems to our economy. And this has all happened on Labor's watch.

GREG JENNETT: Okay, so apart from consultation, what else can you tell us about the process you will go through to land at a cap number? One, will it be this side of the election? Two, will it favour regional universities and will it favour universities with low unionisation rates?

JANE HUME: Well, we'll release the details of our immigration policy and strategy closer to the election. And all of that will become clear. What we would say is this is not how we would go about capping the number of international students. And that's why we're opposing this Bill. Not because we don't want to see the number of international students come back and become more manageable. But because we think this Bill, in fact, may make the situation worse, this is not addressing the systemic problem.

GREG JENNETT: You must have an inkling, though, whether your own likely figure is higher or lower than 270,000.

JANE HUME: All of that will become very clear before the election Greg.

GREG JENNETT: Let's move on Jane Hume. I know time is going to be short on us all today. Electoral reform. So the party room has decided you'll swing in behind the government…

JANE HUME: That's not entirely…

GREG JENNETT: Okay, more precisely, the party room position is we will support it in the house, but reserve our final position. That is the position adopted. You also said this is not necessarily what we would have done. So what would you have done differently?

JANE HUME: Well, all of that's really clear. I mean, this is legislation that has essentially been hiding in plain sight for months. There was an interim report by the JSCEM, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral matters, and then a final report. Now that JSCEM report, the first interim one was around 18 months ago. The final one was 12 months ago. The Government's had a very long time to put this legislation together. It's been really clear what the Coalition wants and doesn't want to do in that report. It's also been very clear what the Government wants to do and indeed what the Crossbench and the Greens would like to do. So none of this should come as a surprise. This is not the bill that we would have created. However, we're very happy to work with the Government on changes to our electoral system to make it a fairer and you know, more democratic process.

GREG JENNETT: So the things you would want to do that were reflected in the original JSCEM report, are you foreshadowing as you reserve your final position? That's the formulation used today. Are you foreshadowing that you'll seek those amendments in the Senate?

JANE HUME: Well, we are already in conversations with the government about this legislation. Of course we are. It's really up to the Government now to see whether they feel that there is any room to move before that legislation comes to the Senate. So I don't want to foreshadow any amendments that might be necessary.

GREG JENNETT: But would you withhold support if no amendments were agreed to?

JANE HUME: Well, this is not a Bill that we're entirely comfortable with. The Government know that and the Crossbench know that as well.

GREG JENNETT: What about some of the terminology here Jane, it's slightly misleading. There's administrative assistance funding. What that actually is higher taxpayer support in the case of the coalition, $20 million worth at a time when you and others frequently tell us government spending must be reduced. Why don't we start with an admission that political parties are substantial beneficiaries of this very package you may end up supporting?

JANE HUME: Well, certainly there is more public funding that is largely to compensate for the fact that donations will be much harder to solicit and to attract. But I suppose, more importantly, there's a huge amount of compliance now that's going to be imposed on political parties as a result of this Bill. That's going to, you know, need essentially a cultural shift in our political party, but also in Labor as well. And that doesn't come for free.

GREG JENNETT: Have you estimated or quantified the size of that task? Now there is time available here, because none of this would kick in until three and a bit years from now. But what is the estimated cost to the Liberal and National Party?

JANE HUME: We're trying to do that. But unfortunately we only saw the Bill for the first time in its entirety last week. It was only introduced yesterday. So all of that's pretty hard to navigate. But the Government obviously has an indication of what it might cost the Labor Party, because otherwise it wouldn't have structured the Bill in this way.

GREG JENNETT: Final one looking further into the future, there have been Coalition figures in the past who've supported a 100% tax payer or public funding model, and the Labor government, I think, with significant support in the South Australian Parliament, is moving down this path. Do you in principle support that model?

JANE HUME: We always would support the right for people's freedom of political expression and to be able to support whichever political party they choose to do so.

GREG JENNETT: All right, Jane Hume, plenty on your plate. We thank you for finding time today.

JANE HUME: Thanks Greg.

GREG JENNETT: Talk soon.