Interview with Sally Sara, RN Breakfast

19 November 2024

SALLY SARA: Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's decision to block Labor's cap on foreign students enrolling in Australian universities is widening the divide within Australia's higher education sector, igniting new debate on the future of international education. At this stage, the government's plan appears doomed to fail as it's yet to win the support of either the Greens or the Coalition. Liberal Senator Jane Hume is my guest this morning. Senator, welcome back to RN Breakfast.

JANE HUME: Good morning.

SALLY SARA: The opposition has previously said that it wants to lower net overseas migration. Why are you blocking the government's plan to limit international student numbers?

JANE HUME: Well, it's pretty simple. It's because we think that this legislation simply won't work. These caps that the government want to place on international students are just part of a very piecemeal approach that really does nothing to address the structural problems that the government has made by itself on its own. The government essentially opened the floodgates to record levels of international students, and we know that that's part of the reason why the housing crisis that we're facing is being fuelled. It's also causing unprecedented chaos in the international education sector. Since the Albanese government was elected, the number of international students that are studying in Australia has almost doubled. It was around 474,000, a little over that when they came to government in May 2022. It's around 800,000 today and so caps might be part of the system, but the way that they have gone about it is confused. It's chaotic and we don't think it's going to solve the problem that they're trying to address. We'd much rather see a holistic approach rather than this simple, piecemeal approach to Australia's migration system.

SALLY SARA: But while the Coalition and Greens block continues there. Those numbers won't be coming down.

JANE HUME: But this is the problem, Sally. We haven't seen a problem that addresses the root cause and one of the root causes is problems with the visa system. So for instance, there's about a million students or so, current or former students that are currently in the country. There's around 7600 or so that are claiming asylum under Labor, that have claimed asylum just in the last two years. There's around 113,000 that are on bridging visas, waiting for student visa decisions. There's around 228,000 that are temporary graduate visa holders, and there's still around 30,000, amazingly, that are covid work visa holders. So just putting caps on international students rather than addressing the visa system is really not solving the problem.

SALLY SARA: Why not use the caps as a first step if that's the direction you want to head in?

JANE HUME: Well Peter Dutton has said that we will place caps on international students, but we'll do it in such a way that we deal directly with the education providers.

We don't feel that there's been any adequate consultation, particularly with those private providers or regional universities, and they are so important in our education system, and they're an important place for international students as well. Those providers are telling us that they haven't had adequate consultation in the setting of these caps. That's going to be an important part of this.

SALLY SARA: What's your evidence that international students are the problem when it comes to housing rather than housing supply and policy?

JANE HUME: Well, we know that they are part of the problem. I didn't say they are the problem, but we certainly know that they are part of the problem, particularly in our inner cities. They're putting pressure on rental accommodations and that's making it harder for Australians and Australian students to find accommodation, too.

SALLY SARA: Your Coalition colleague Bridget McKenzie said last week that the longstanding social compact that migration is good for the country has snapped, do you agree with that?

JANE HUME: We know that Australia is a great migrant nation. Migration has been a source of prosperity and progress for decades to come, but an appropriately managed migration system is fundamental to that compact that Senator McKenzie was talking about and we want to make sure that our migration system is managed appropriately into the future, that it serves Australians that are here as well as the Australians of the next generation.

SALLY SARA: Yesterday, more than ten Independent Senators and MPs banded together to criticise the government's electoral reforms. Some have suggested that it's a stitch up between the major parties to rig the system in their favour, rather than the independents. Why are you supporting these reforms?

JANE HUME: Well, actually those reforms are going to our party room today. So I don't want to pre-empt what the result of that party room would be. The government only introduced its legislation yesterday, the first time that we saw it, and indeed the crossbench saw it in full, was last week. So I don't think I can comment any more on electoral reforms. We'll wait to see what the party room says.

SALLY SARA: What do you think about the argument that the Independents are putting up?

JANE HUME: Well, I can imagine that the Independents aren't going to be happy with this, but this is the government's legislation, and it's probably a question better directed to the government.

SALLY SARA: Crossbenchers are demanding that proposed changes be sent to a Parliamentary Committee for scrutiny. Do you think that's a good idea?

JANE HUME: Well, that's what the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters does, and it does that after every election. You can pretty much see the government's position laid bare in that JSCEM report and you can also see the crossbench and the opposition's positions laid bare. This is not necessarily what we would have done, but, you know, it's the government's legislation.

SALLY SARA: Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told Anthony Albanese at the G20 that there's been a turnaround in the relationship between the two countries. What would the Coalition do if you got back into government to ensure that the dip in relations that we saw during the Morrison Government doesn't repeat itself?

JANE HUME: Well, we've been consistent in saying that we want to see a normalisation of our trading relationship with China. That's particularly important, but we don't want to do that at the expense of our national interest. We want to make sure that the relationship is one that is of mutual respect, not simply respect for one side.

SALLY SARA: Is the relationship better now than it was under your government?

JANE HUME: Well, I suppose it depends on what your judgement is of better. Have we resumed trading relationships and things with things like, you know, crayfish? Yeah, that's terrific and we're very pleased about that. But we want to make sure that the respect for both sides is still there.

SALLY SARA: Would you put that issue of respect ahead of Australian exporters and their future?

JANE HUME: Well, we certainly want to see, as I said, a normalisation of the trading relationship. But we also understand that there are tensions and, you know, we don't necessarily have to agree or see eye to eye on every issue. But there does need to be mutual respect for each other's positions and that needs to be reflected, I think, in the relationship between the leaders.

SALLY SARA: Let's look at the issue of wages and job security here at home. Business groups are pushing to expand the definition of a small business so more businesses can access legal protections around dismissing workers. Do you support that push?

JANE HUME: Yeah look, the real reason why small businesses want to see a sort of a realignment of the definition of small business is because they've been so wrapped up in red tape that they're now finding it hard to navigate through the system. We know that about 49% of small businesses are either not making a profit, or only just breaking even and that's got worse over this cost of living crisis over the last two years, which has manifested in a cost of doing business crisis too. The Committee that I've been chairing throughout the year, The Cost of Living Committee spoke to the Restaurant and Cafe Association, and they told us that navigating the thousands of pages of legislation just to open their cafe at 6 a.m. or open a restaurant at 11:00 in the morning, is untenable. That they now, if you've got six employees, for instance, you know, trying to find the definition of a casual, whether they're a casual, whether they're a permanent is unbelievably difficult and particularly for small businesses that don't have their own human resources department or their own in-house legal counsel or their own compliance department, it means that the small business owners have to pick, they have to pick up the slack. They're either working extra days themselves and not taking any time off at all, or they're going home at night and doing payroll and doing compliance, which is just untenable.

SALLY SARA: You're talking about cost of living there in that answer, Parliamentary Inquiry chaired by you, found that cost of living is the number one issue affecting Australian households and businesses. The government has had a number of measures it's rolled out to try and get inflation back under control and deal with this issue. Cheaper medicines, tax cuts for every taxpayer, wiping billions in student debt, providing free TAFE spots. Will you be withdrawing any of those programs if the Coalition is elected?

JANE HUME: Well, certainly we would approach the cost of living crisis in a different way and that's because independent economists and the Reserve Bank and indeed organisations like the IMF, have been pointing to one of the problems that the government is ignoring, which is increased public expenditure. Increased public expenditure fuels inflation further. It means the inflation crisis is higher for longer, which means interest rates are higher for longer. Unless you address that root cause of inflation, well, you're just exacerbating the problem and anything else is a band-aid solution. So the recommendation of this report is that we hold a National Cabinet into public expenditure so that we align both State and Federal Government responses to this issue that is making our lives worse and lowering our standard of living.

SALLY SARA: So I'd bring you back to the question, will you be withdrawing any of those programs?

JANE HUME: That is not the intention of the government. We'll announce our policies in the lead up to the election, obviously, but what we want to make sure is that we bring back that fiscal discipline back into our budgetary processes and make sure that our number one priority is to get inflation under control and to do that, you have to wind back public expenditure and not do that unnecessary and undisciplined expenditure. Now, there's always going to be programs that need to be funded. Essential services will of course continue, but there is a lot of unnecessary waste and undisciplined expenditure that this government has fuelled inflation, the inflation fire in the last two years.

SALLY SARA: So how does that fit with, at this stage, an uncosted Nuclear program?

JANE HUME: Well, we will announce our costings around nuclear in the lead up to the election. You know that we'll do that. But you can see last week that Frontier Economics, an entirely independent organisation, costed the government's energy policy and it came out that there's a $500 billion black hole there, that they haven't accounted for the cost of things like household solar. They haven't accounted for the cost of transmission and of course that's going to push up energy prices. We won't do, release our costings for nuclear. We want to make sure that we're comparing apples with apples. You have to compare a full energy mix with another full energy mix. Labor's renewables only all eggs in one basket approach with the Coalition's combination of renewables firming gas temporarily and then moving to nuclear in the future.

SALLY SARA: Shadow Finance Minister Senator Jane Hume thank you for joining Radio National Breakfast this morning.

JANE HUME: Great to be with you, Sally.