Today’s Senate Notice Paper signals that the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 is unlikely to reappear during this final sitting week, following last Monday’s surprise news that the Coalition has decided not to support the Bill. The ESOS Bill is listed last, at number 30, in the Government’s order of Bills that could be brought forward for debate, with four days left in the 2024 Parliamentary Sitting calendar.
The Second Reading Debate of the ESOS Bill commenced last Monday night, but was adjourned when the Senate sitting period concluded for the evening. And now that the Government doesn’t have the numbers in the Senate, the ESOS Bill debate looks set to remain adjourned.
Although technically there remains a possibility that the Government could do a deal with the Coalition or Greens to pass the Bill this week, this is extremely unlikely.
The Greens have opposed the ESOS Bill since its introduction and Senator Mehreen Faruqi said during Monday’s debate when referring to international student caps that “hopefully [they] are now dead in the water”. As for the Coalition, the ‘debate’ descended into personal attacks between Labor and Liberal politicians as the week went on, leaving little indication of what might prompt the Coalition to backflip.
Last Friday me, Claire Field and Dirk Mulder shared our thoughts on what might happen next and if you didn’t have a chance to join us, the recording is now available here.
