So said the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, in yesterday’s keynote address at the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC). But if you search through social media posts, you’d be hard-pressed to find out what else the Minister said, and that’s because he didn’t say anything that we didn’t already know.
Anyone who was hoping that Clare might make some kind of announcement, such as walking back anything that has been proposed (ie caps) or providing any clarity about what amendments might be coming, would have been sorely disappointed. For me, the substance of the speech was about what I expected.
The Minister lamented that it had been 160 days since the ESOS Amendment Bill had been introduced into Parliament (Note: he didn’t make any comment that maybe that’s because there are some signs that there are genuine concerns with the Bill, four Senate Hearings and around 250 submissions/supplementary submissions to the inquiry).
He also continued with the binary narrative that the Government has been running, saying “it’s time to pass the Bill and get rid of Ministerial Direction 107”, and that caps were “a heck of a lot better” than MD107.
The only thing that was mildly of note for me is that the rationale for caps has now been short-handed to, the Government wants migration back at pre-pandemic levels, and getting students back to pre-pandemic levels is part of achieving that.
I proposed a game of buzz word bingo last week (and it was picked up in yesterday’s Future Campus) for what I’d expect to hear in a stump speech, and it wasn’t even a good speech for that. Perhaps the Minister had been advised that it wasn’t necessary to twist the knife any further.
The Minister ended his address, introducing the Indian Minister of Education, The Hon. Shri Dharmendra Pradhan. And that was that.
If you’re attending AIEC today, come along to a session I’m chairing at 1.15pm in Plenary 1: Policy headwinds – a 360-degree analysis of issues facing Australia, UK and Canada. It’s along with Jon Chew, Chief Insights Officer, Navitas and Simon Emmett, CEO, IDP Connect.
