E&OE 

LAURA JAYES: The Albanese government has announced that international student enrolments will be capped at 270,000 from next year. For more on how this will impact the sector, I’m joined by Professor David Lloyd, the Universities Australia chair, and vice chancellor and president of University of South Australia. First of all, your reaction to this. We’re waiting for the government to put a number on it. Is this worrying you this morning? 

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: Laura, how are you? I think it is a concern. I think it’s a concern because what we’re looking at here is a government proposal to implement a fix. And I’m using that word quite advisedly to a problem that they created. Back in January, former minister Clare O’Neil implemented a directive on visa processing at the start of the year which has had massive consequences and unintended consequences across the Australian economy, costing us at least $4 billion. And now we’ve got additional overreach proposed and changes that are being proposed and layered in before we’ve even had an opportunity to see the damage that that intervention has done.  

LAURA JAYES: Yeah, I was talking to the Premier Peter Malinauskas in your state just last week, and he was saying that you know, if housing is the issue in South Australia, for example, there’s a 10 per cent vacancy rate for student accommodation in South Australia. 

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: Exactly. So, students have been, international students have been held up as somehow causing an Australian housing problem. There’s no evidence to support that. The Property Council have come out and said the same thing. It’s simply not the case.  

LAURA JAYES: Okay. So, we have a little bit more information. We know that regional unis are going to get a bit of a boost here. But what’s the material effect of this cap, David? 

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: I think the utility of the word boost is an interesting one, because what we’re talking about here is a proposal to take enrolments and caps back to 2019, which is five years ago. And somehow that’s seen as a progressive thing. We’re dealing with the second largest export industry in the country, and surely there’s a recognition that the growth, and exports is something that Australia wants. It supports research and innovation. It supports the economy. We’ve got the Business Council of Australia, we’ve got Tourism Australia, we’ve got all of these other areas outside of the university sector saying that this is a bad idea and it’s still being progressed.  

LAURA JAYES: Yeah, it’s crazy actually, and it’s regions that are concerned about this as well. James Cook University in Townsville, for example. They’re concerned about basically less international students means less money and that means less money going to things like R&D. So, there’s a big funding gap here. The government hasn’t offered to fill it anyway. Have they? 

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: No. And I only have to turn my mind back to what happened during the pandemic, when there were no international students, that the government had to find an extra billion dollars to fund research that wasn’t being funded by the institutions themselves. So, I can just see that happening again. If you think about the region’s vibrancy in our communities, the way in which we support local economies, they all hinge on successful and sustainable institutions. Universities are really now in financial dire straits as we go into the coming year, and this is just another whack for us.   

LAURA JAYES: David, one final question here. This seems like a solution to a Melbourne and Sydney problem in many ways that has been rolled out over the rest of the country. I mean, the University of Western Australia, they’ve got to be jumping up and down about this as well. 

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: I think it’s a blunt instrument intervention which is going to have consequences that impact all sorts of universities, whether it’s going to solve, you know, particular issues in local jurisdictions are yet to be seen. All I can tell you is that if I was waking up in another institution, in another capital city today, and I had to try and deal with the impost, which is about to be put upon me in my next year’s financial statements, I’d be looking at how I employ people, and that’s the bottom line.  

LAURA JAYES: So that’s the bottom line. People will start to be sacked.   

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: I think that’s going to be inevitable in some institutions.  

LAURA JAYES: And then you’re going to have a brain drain, right? So, you’re going to have some accomplished professors that’ll be looking at the writing on the wall here worried. And we might lose them overseas.  

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: To be honest, I’m more concerned about the signal that it sends to students and about Australia being a welcoming place. I mean, as I said, this is the second largest export industry in this country. It’s the only one we don’t dig out of the ground. 86 per cent of the students who take their education in Australian universities return to their home countries. Right. So, it’s almost a perfect industry, and we’re making an intervention which will say to them don’t come.  

LAURA JAYES: And I’m sure this has been communicated behind closed doors. And what has been the answer? Nothing.  

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: It’s been communicated not just behind closed doors, but you’ve seen it play out in the Senate committee over the last number of days as well. The interventions are not welcomed. I think it’s clear that this is a political play, which is about migration and putting international students into the migration crosshairs. It’s just simply misleading.   

LAURA JAYES: David, thanks so much for your time today  

PROFESSOR DAVID LLOYD: Thanks, Laura. 

ENDS