University peak bodies were quick to blame the Albanese Government’s interventions to reduce the number of international students in Australia for the country’s slow economic growth, following the release of the September quarter GDP figures yesterday.
The economy grew just 0.3 per cent in the September quarter and is at 0.8 per cent for the year (Sept ’23 to Sept ’24), the slowest growth since the COVID-19 affected December quarter 2020.
Universities Australia said that efforts to cut the number of international students studying in Australia are hurting the economy. “Our economy is stuck in low gear and the handbrake on international education is a big reason for that,” Universities Australia Chief Executive Officer Luke Sheehy said.
“The Government has been using Ministerial Direction 107 to reduce international student numbers since last December and now we are seeing the damaging effects in the data – our outer suburban and regional unis are being hit the hardest,” said Sheehy.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics also reported services exports fell 3.0 per cent, which “was driven by a fall in the number of students arriving to start semester two”.
The Group of Eight said that this was “further evidence that discussion around international student caps and the other recent changes to international education policy are damaging our $51 billion international education sector – Australia’s leading services export”.
These arguments will resonate with those in the beleaguered international education sector. But our challenge is that the Opposition is already linking the poor economic result with what it sees as the Government’s big Australia agenda.
According to Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, the population growth of just short of 1.6 million since Labor came to power was the equivalent of “a person coming to live in Australia every 44 seconds”.
We can expect this statistic to be a sound bite on repeat in the lead up to the election, along with the accusation that the current Government is about “big Australia, big government, big population growth”.
