If his party wins the next federal election, Peter Dutton, the leader of Australia’s opposition, has promised to ease migration and curb the number of international students. Dutton presented his party’s proposals to tighten restrictions on international students attending large universities and cut the admission of permanent migrants by 25%.
Addressing the housing crisis and rebalancing Australia’s migration program are the goals of the Coalition’s proposal. The current Labor government, according to Dutton, opened the “migration floodgates,” allowing a record one million migrants to enter the nation in just two years. Due to demand critically exceeding supply, this inflow has placed strain on housing, infrastructure and services.
Education leaders and industry experts have expressed concern that restricting the number of international students could negatively impact Australia’s $4.3 billion international education sector, arguing that international students are a symptom of larger systemic problems rather than a primary cause of housing shortages. The Coalition intends to implement a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents buying existing Australian homes, as well as to reduce the permanent migration program from 185,000 to 140,000 places for two years before returning to a sustainable 150,000 and 160,000 places in the following years.
According to Australia’s 2023–2024 overseas migration statistics, the number of overseas visitors with student visas fell by 25%, from 278,000 in 2022–2023 to 207,000 in 2023–2024. With 39.5% of Australia’s net overseas migration, international students continue to be the largest group of migrant arrivals notwithstanding this reduction. The number of overseas students is in jeopardy, and the education sector is currently facing a difficult time. Australia’s foreign education sector will probably be shaped by the results of the federal election, which will have a major impact on the country’s economy and reputation abroad.
Surprisingly, Dutton had previously teamed up with the Greens to block the Labor government’s plans to cap the number of international students under the ESOS Amendment Bill. The Bill failed to pass the Senate, which resulted in the introduction of a new directive for processing visas called Ministerial Direction 111 (MD 111), which gives each provider priority for student visas until they reach 80% of their cap figure.
