Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for Higher Education, has responded to the defeat of the Labor government’s disastrous bill to cap international students.
As stated by Senator Faruqi:
“This is a win for the tertiary sector. This is a win for staff in the tertiary sector. This is a win for international students who have been unfairly scapegoated and targeted by the Labor government.
“Labor’s reckless and chaotic international student caps are finally dead in the water as they should be. This was the very definition of how not to make policy.”
“From day one, we have been vocal in our opposition to these student caps which was just dog whistling that shamefully scapegoated international students for the housing crisis they did not cause.
“Literally everyone except Labor was opposed to international student caps because they would decimate the sector, harm international students and our reputation and result in massive job and economic losses.
“This was always a migration bill disguised as education policy in Labor’s bid to win a race to the bottom with the Coalition on migration.
“We pushed back hard, and now with the Coalition opposing it as well, this flawed policy will hopefully never see the light of day.
“I hope Labor has learnt their lesson. They must go back to the drawing board and come back with a plan that fully funds universities for research, learning and teaching, to tackle insecure work and casualisation, wipe student debt and make Uni and TAFE free.”
