E&OE

LAURA JAYES: The Federal Budget has offered a $3 billion lifeline to students who rely on HECS debt to get an education – it’s just one of the measures Labor introduced last week. Universities will also be affected by one particular measure in last night’s Budget and that’s around one third of our total migration intake is the overseas high fee-paying students. Now the government is going to impose limits on those international students depending on how much student housing each uni can provide.

Joining me now is Universities Australia Chief Executive Officer, Luke Sheehy. Good to see you, Luke. I think this will be really popular among voters in places like Sydney and Melbourne because of the rental pressures. But can it be done practically? What are the problems that you are seeing with delivering that?

LUKE SHEEHY: The really important thing to remember is that international education is a great Australian success story and it has underpinned significant economic growth. The National Bank of Australia tells us that half of our growth last year came from this tremendously important sector. Students we know only contribute to four per cent of the rental market, so in negotiating with the government on what they’d like to see as a co-investment for additional growth above what’s agreed, universities will work with the government to see how we can provide accommodation for both Australian and international students. I think it’s important that students have somewhere to live and that there’s confidence in the Australian community that international students and domestic students have somewhere to live while they’re studying.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, so about four per cent of the rental market they have an effect on. Do you think universities where this is going to matter, so in the major cities, actually have the space to provide more student accommodation either on properties that they own, that’s only available for students or on campus?

LUKE SHEEHY: Universities have very different footprints. Some have tremendous amounts of land in regional areas and of course out of suburban areas and some are very small campuses in CBD footprint. So, it does vary depending on the campus. I think it’s important to remember that where we’ve succeeded in the past, universities have worked with the private sector, particularly within the previous National Rental Affordability Scheme to turbocharge student accommodation. I’d call that adjacent to many of the campuses and in cities. There is space limitation at some of our older universities that are in the main cities, but other universities do have land and that might be realised through a negotiation with the Commonwealth.

LAURA JAYES: It’s a vague plan at the moment. The government hasn’t put hard numbers on it, which I’m sure you’ll be relieved about. They say after consultation. Do you think it will have to be a kind of blanket plan for universities and then you carve it up between yourselves or will the government need to almost negotiate with each university individually?

LUKE SHEEHY: We’ll see where they land and obviously they’ve got to consult widely – I think I’m up for fortnightly meetings from here just on this issue alone. What I think is important is understanding that the system is diverse and there’s lots of capacity differences within the university sector to deliver on this and also some universities have more capacity for growth in international students. So, there will be individual assessment of each university. There already is a compact that each university has with the government for its funding arrangements. So, what I anticipate is there’ll be an extension of that to negotiate growth. We’ve actually seen that in the Accord and the Budget papers yesterday that universities will move to manage growth for domestic students over next couple years. I expect a new Tertiary Education Commission will end up negotiating with individual universities around the size of their both domestic and international student numbers over the years ahead.

LAURA JAYES: Is this a surprise or did you know this was coming?

LUKE SHEEHY: The government has a policy and they’ve been quite clear about reducing the numbers of incoming migrants into the country to relieve some of those pressures – both perceived and real – in terms of housing and other things. I think we’ve been talking to the government for a while to get better clarity. The current arrangements around the way student visas are processed according to risk ratings of individual institutions is not fit for purpose and we’ve made that very clear to government. So, what we are looking for in this new policy proposal is clarity, certainty and growth for this critically important sector for Australia.

LAURA JAYES: Alright, good luck with those fortnightly meetings. Thanks, Luke.