MICHAEL ROWLAND: Let’s bring in Luke Sheehy, the Chief Executive of Universities Australia. Luke, a very good morning to you.

LUKE SHEEHY: Good to be with you.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Lots to talk about on the universities front and I want to get to the contentious issue of student caps in a moment. But we had last night the Treasurer confirming things like HECS relief for students. Overall, what do you make of it in terms of the university sector?

LUKE SHEEHY: We think in a cost-of-living crisis, young people are really having a difficult time. We’ve been asking the Government to prioritise cost of living relief for students and that’s what we’ve seen in the Budget. The HECS changes, the lift in the Commonwealth rent assistance and the new payments for practical placements in teaching, nursing, social work and midwifery and now uncapping of uni fee-free preparatory courses – they’re really great news for students. It’s going to help boost the number of students, particularly from underrepresented backgrounds, in the university system. That’s a big ambition of the Universities Accord to double the number of university places by 2050. We’re really supportive of that. That’s great news for students and it’s great news for the country.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Lifting the maximum rate for Commonwealth rent assistance will help students. Do you have a rough idea of how many university students will be helped out by this measure?

LUKE SHEEHY: I don’t have the numbers to hand, but I know that many students rely on income support and rent assistance from the Commonwealth, so the more affordable that can be with those supports, the better, because that means they can focus more on their studies. That’s why I think the placement payments are a really great idea. It’s going to help more students finish off their degree because Australia needs more university graduates for our economy to succeed.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: The Government’s made it clear – the Government doesn’t necessarily want more international students coming in. Let’s go to that contentious issue of student caps. The Treasurer touched on that last night. No further detail on how the Government intends to impose that cap on a university-by-university basis. Firstly, where do negotiations stand on that?

LUKE SHEEHY: The Government has released a framework and discussion paper, and they’ve promised to consult with the sector widely over the next coming months. The implementation won’t be until the 1st of January next year. What’s really important here is this sector is a great success story for our country. It not only enhances the experience for Australians by having many, many people from overseas in their classrooms – it’s good for the economy. The National Australia Bank told us that half of economic growth last year came from this critically important sector. It’s worth nearly $50 billion to the Australian economy, so we can’t damage this sector overnight. What we want to see is negotiated growth and I think in the paper it says growth a lot. We’re looking to ensure that there’s strong growth for this critically important sector into the future.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: The Treasurer made the point again last night that okay, if universities want to take in more international students, you’ve got to build more accommodation. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?

LUKE SHEEHY: We want to make sure that students have somewhere to live when they come to Australia. That’s an important part of what we should be doing. Four per cent of the rental market comes from international students, so that’s an important thing to remember. I think the framework that the Government has released doesn’t go into much detail around the pressure that international students put on housing. What we know is there are fewer houses built today than there were in 2019, so we need more houses built for all Australians and we will work with the Government to ensure that there’s a great co-investment in housing for both Australian students and international students.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: I want to finish by asking you about the student encampments. We see so many of them in universities around Australia with students protesting the war in Gaza. We understand Deakin University issued an eviction notice for students in an encampment in the last day or so. Broadly speaking, as the head of the peak body representing universities, what do you think of what’s going on campuses?

LUKE SHEEHY: I’ve been talking to all of our universities and there are a number of encampments at some of our universities, particularly in the capital cities. Students obviously have a right to free speech, but also people have a right to be safe on our campuses. They are public universities and public spaces. We want to make sure that we balance the obligations we have to ensure freedom of speech, but freedom of speech doesn’t have to turn into hate speech and universities are taking the right steps when a breach has occurred and they’re working with their local authorities to do that. I want to make sure that we have campuses that embrace freedom of speech and allow peaceful protests. That’s really important in a democracy, but we want to make sure there is safety on our campuses.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: I appreciate your time on this chilly Canberra morning. Thank you, Luke.