With the federal election now called, and the major parties policy battlelines drawn, a somewhat apprehensive sigh of relief can be heard throughout the international education sector.
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It's a sector that has suffered more than most during the last five years, and particularly during the past two years as overseas students became a political football, and student visa refusals soared.
So, what does the international education sector need from the next government?
First, we would like to see a government that keeps overseas students out of public slanging matches with the opposition on migration levels but rather acknowledges their positive contribution and the international education sector's economic and cultural importance.
Already, the international education sector has concerns regarding the Coalition's intention, outlined in the budget reply, to introduce, as a priority, a "Lower Immigration and More Homes for Australians Bill".
Given the lack of detail on what the bill entails, and the Coalition's previous pledge to slash overseas student numbers, we fear that once again, students from abroad will be cast as major contributors to the housing crisis, when all the evidence shows their impact is negligible.
In reality, the international education sector is an important source of revenue to Australia estimated at over $50 billion per annum, with the Reserve Bank of Australia recently warning the government that bringing students numbers down too far, could hurt the economy, and impact our skilled workforce.
The current appetite for employer sponsorship in Australia, which is creating processing backlogs, is an indication of the need by employers for skilled migrants - despite the higher salaries and expensive training contribution fees required.
The current government's de facto student cap mechanism, Ministerial Direction 111, which slows offshore student visa processing once a tertiary institution gets close to its student target was introduced to prioritise student numbers rather than capping them.
However, we're now seeing the Group of 8 (Go8) the peak body for Australia's elite universities, benefit mostly from the prioritising of student visa applications, while smaller institutions and regional universities are being negatively and disproportionately impacted.
Defining and setting overseas students' numbers by way of a ministerial direction, is proving to be a flawed policy which has also led to a spate of protection visa applications from overseas students which can not only take years to progress through the legal system, but also places further pressure on the system by providing more reasons to refuse - it creates a vicious cycle.
What Australians may not know is that student visa refusals cost the taxpayer tens of millions in dollars, especially when increasing numbers of applications end up going to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
Many of these refusals are overturned and the applicant gets to continue their studies, but others decide not to incur expensive legal fees fighting a case in the ART and return to their own country.
This helps the government to reduce immigration numbers, but it's hardly an efficient or fair method of regulating numbers - particularly where the initial fee for a student visa is the world's most expensive, at $1600.
What we need now is certainty about the future direction of international education, and student visa numbers.
We need to know what a returned Labor government plans to do, and if they will fully implement their Migration Strategy, as they promised at the start of their tenure.
At present when it comes to an offshore strategy, education agents are telling prospective students there is no certainty nor is there a plan.
Places for the points tested skilled migration program have been reduced so drastically, that what is currently in place is akin to a lottery system.
From the Coalition we need more realistic immigration targets that acknowledge the reality of our skills shortage and economic importance of the international education sector.
The current pledge from a Coalition government to reduce permanent migration by 25 per cent to 140,000 for two years is unsustainable, economically risky, and unachievable.
We'd like to see the next government pledge to introduce self-regulation of said education agents and to ensure there are clear barriers to entry for shonky education providers who bring nothing but disrepute to the industry.
Ultimately, further consultation is required with all areas of the international education sector, and we need clear, realistic and transparent solutions.
We need concrete plans and policy that won't be changed constantly in an ad hoc, reactionary fashion.
Rather, we need a government that will set realistic goals for education agents to help them recruit students for Australia.
But these solutions can only be reached when government consults with those who are working at the coalface.
Then, we can truly find the middle path that Australia urgently needs to take, which will help to re-establish our reputation as a global education destination of choice and ensure the long-term viability of the sector.
- Melanie Macfarlane is the executive director of the International Student Education Agents Association.
