Two days back, the leader of the Liberal Party announced his party will raise the student visa application fee by between 56% and 212% and cut international student numbers by 80,000.
English Australia, the national peak industry body for the English language teaching sector, strongly opposes these moves and the economic and social damage they would cause Australia. These moves would cost tens of thousands of Australians their jobs. They would decimate a vital sector of the Australian economy that underpins tourism, hospitality, retail, aged-care, child-care and not to mention subsidising degrees and training for Australians.
A student visa fee of $2,500 and of $5,000 for students of the largest universities would see international student numbers plummet and businesses collapse. It would cost Australia billions of dollars in export earnings and billions of dollars in local economic activity. It would damage Australia’s position in the global economy and decimate the education sector’s significant contribution to Australia’s global and regional soft diplomacy at a time when the country can least afford it. Having taken decades of investment and hard work to develop, such damage will take many years to repair.
Cutting student numbers will have minimal impact on housing availability or affordability. It has been conclusively demonstrated that international students have not created nor significantly impacted the cost or availability of housing in Australia. Instead, it was caused by decades of building too few homes, the rise of housing as an investment, and by the dramatic fall in the number of people living in each home. Cutting student numbers will, however, see tens of thousands of Australians lose their livelihoods in the midst of the housing crisis. It will cause hundreds of small businesses that rely on the sector to collapse.
In 2024, the Labor government increased the student visa fee by 125%. This made it the most expensive student visa in the world. As a result, applications for student visas for study in the English language sector have fallen by 50%. A further increase of 56% to $2,500 would be fatal for the English language teaching sector. As the average enrolment is less than 20 weeks, this application charge would be utterly disproportionate.
A $2,500 student visa fee represents a clear message that Australia does not welcome international students. It says Australia does not want them to come, study, travel and learn to love Australia. It says Australia does not want international students to come, train, and fill the ever-widening skills gaps that are supressing productivity in Australia. It says Australia does not value the billions of dollars international students spend to subsidise the facilities and courses that Australian students enjoy or the billions they spend in local shops and businesses around the country.
English Australia calls on the leader of the opposition and on the government to do more to protect Australian jobs. In 2023, there were approximately 250,000 Australians employed in international education in Australia. That’s more than double the number employed in iron ore, coal, and gas mining combined.
In the recent federal budget, the government set aside $195 million per year to support Australia’s tourism sector. This continuation of federal government support for international tourism makes perfect sense as tourism employs hundreds of thousands of Australians and supports thousands of small and medium businesses. So does international education. International education is the single largest contributor to Australia’s tourism earnings, generating 38% of the sector’s total income. The attack on international education throughout 2024 and the implementation of this further hike to the student visa fee will decimate our tourism sector along with the education sector.
At the end of COVID, the federal government pushed for the rapid return of international students. At that time, the government understood the importance of international students to Australia’s economy.
As a result, in 2023, spending by international students and the sector kept Australia out of a recession. As recent English Australia research shows, in 2023, day-to-day spending by international students around the country amounted to $13.75 billion dollars. This is not the $51 billion in export earnings international students delivered in 2023, this is spending at local cafes, in local shops, in the local pub, with local tradies. This spending is spread across all but two federal electorates.
International students aren’t tourists. During their stay in Australia, they buy beds and crockery, laptops and phones, clothes and medicine. On average, international students spend four times more per night of their stay than international tourists. Dramatic cuts to international student numbers mean billions out of the tills of local shops and out of the pockets of small businesses around the country.
Federal governments should be celebrating a sector that employs so many Australians and supports so many Australian businesses. At a time when global tariffs are damaging the prospects of Australia’s primary industry export sector, the Australian economy needs more than ever to support international education, a sector not threatened by trade tariffs.
For more than four decades, English Australia has championed the work that has built Australia into a first-choice destination for international students from around the world. It is an incredible success story. It is a story Australians should be proud of.
English Australia urges all who are or who are vying to become Australia’s representatives in Parliament to celebrate this success and the enormous value of international students for Australia. As we did in our recent election statement, we urge all those who form Australia’s next federal government to work collaboratively and energetically with the sector and to support the sector for a sustainable future.
