By Andrew Brown in Canberra
Caps on international students at universities would only have been a “piecemeal” approach to address migration concerns, a coalition frontbencher says.
The federal opposition has pledged to vote against government plans to rein in the number of foreign students at 270,000 people.
The coalition said it would oppose the policy just weeks before the laws were due to come into effect.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said a limit on international students would not solve issues on immigration.
“These caps that the government want to place on international students are just part of a very piecemeal approach really does nothing to address the structural problems,” she told ABC Radio on Tuesday.
“Just putting caps on international students rather than addressing the visa system is really not solving a problem.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had previously expressed support for international student caps.
The proposed caps would be less than half of the 445,000 international students starting their study in 2024 at Australia universities, with the limits aimed at bringing immigration back to pre-pandemic levels.
Industry Minister Ed Husic accused the opposition of reneging support for the caps as political games.
“This is another case of them playing politics, putting their political interests above the interests of the country,” he told ABC TV.
“The coalition just opposing this legislation gives no solution, no indication about what they’d do. So the onus is on them now to say, ‘well, if you said this is important to do, why won’t you actually support work to be done in this space?'”
Chief executive of Group of Eight Vicki Thomson, which represents Australia’s largest universities, said the caps would have been disastrous for the sector.
“From the get go, this legislation has just been chaotic and wrapped up in a discussion around migration,” she told ABC Radio.
“For us, what we see now is a level of certainty going into 2025.”
Ms Thomson said there would not be a surge of international students coming into Australia following the cap not being likely to pass parliament.
“It takes 12 or 18 months for students from the time you actually begin your recruitment process till the time they come, so we don’t expect a massive influx,” she said.
“What we do want to do, though, is have a good discussion with government and opposition as we lead into 2025 around what the shape is of our international education sector.”
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