The second reading of the Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025 was agreed to in the Federation Chamber of Parliament today. The Bill will now be reported back to the House of Representatives without amendment.
Debate on the second reading began in the House of Representatives yesterday and continued in the Federation Chamber today (Wednesday, 29 October).
At the time of writing this article, not all transcripts for the second reading had been published. Koala will be writing a follow up article on what our politicians said today during the debate.
Shadow Minister for Education and Early Learning, Julian Leeser spoke on the Bill on Tuesday, prior to its referral to the Federation Chamber. On the proposed amendments to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, he raised the following:
- No changes have been made to definitions of education agent and education agent commissions from the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024, despite concerns raised by the sector during last year’s inquiry.
- Part 2 of Schedule 1, Giving information to registered providers, could drive up education agent commissions and not enough consideration has been given to this possibility.
- He was critical that the Bill does not deliver on Recommendation 13 of the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System (the Nixon review), that “Consideration be given to regulating onshore and offshore education agents used by Australian education providers”.
- On the Minister having the ability to cancel any course (Part 7), Leeser called this a “massive power” that is “essentially unchecked”. He also said, “It’s arguably duplicative of the functions of the regulators, and I am worried that this might result in administrative law litigation”.
- Regarding amendments to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 giving the regulator additional powers to regulate offshore delivery, he questioned the timing given the current review that is underway into the TEQSA Act. He said, “The only explanation we have here is that TEQSA has asked for these powers, and we need more explanation than that”.
If you’d like to know more about the role of the Federation Chamber, see the Parliament of Australia website here.
