Albanese’s plans to cap the number of commencing international students for 2025 have stalled, after the Senate rejected the legislation. But it will continue reducing international students through other measures to restrict visas.
Labor’s moves are designed to help halve net overseas migration—scapegoating immigrants for the cost of living.
The idea that Australia’s housing crisis is caused by students cramped into accommodation in suburbs near the universities is ridiculous.
Albanese has opened the door to a racist debate he cannot win. Dutton is campaigning already against international students as “the modern version of the boat arrivals” and the Coalition has promised “deeper cuts” if they win the next election.
Labor is desperately trying to attack Dutton for failing to support the caps, with Immigration Minister Tony Burke arguing, “If anybody out there is thinking that because of the rate of immigration they are having trouble getting into a home, just know the leader of the opposition has decided to make that worse.”
But Labor cannot convincingly out-flank Dutton on the right on immigration.
The National Tertiary Education Union has demanded no jobs are lost, but stopped short of opposing the caps as a whole. This stems from the misguided belief that caps push back against corporatisation, and an unwillingness to confront those university staff who blame international students for our sky-rocketing workloads.
It’s a travesty that international students are paying upwards of $50,000 per year to study and that the universities take this money while providing very few of the supports to ensure students can meaningfully access their education.
Universities have continued to jack up class sizes while keeping marking rates at punishing speeds. Students with English as a second language often need more support than teachers can give, and too often staff blame students for this instead of management.
But capping student numbers does nothing to reduce class sizes or reduce fees. It merely allows the scapegoating to continue and for racist ideas to go unchallenged.
We need to demand the student caps be abandoned and that the university sector receive full public funding, instead of relying on inflated student fees.
The campus-level fights against job cuts are already pulling the union left. The NSW Division has called on the NTEU to reconsider its position on student caps, and called a state-wide mobilisation demanding public funding, while over 500 members in Victoria voted for a statewide delegates meeting and action to stop the job cuts and win public funding.
By Sophie Cotton
