The Bill, which contains a suite of integrity-focused reforms that will impact Australia’s international and higher education sectors, is progressing through parliament.
With that, stakeholders have been weighing in. Here are some of the key points raised in submissions, focusing on education agents, TEQSA powers, and consultation concerns.
Changes for education agents
The Bill is set to tighten oversight of education agents by broadening the legal definition of who qualifies as an agent and introducing new transparency requirements around commissions and payments.
Universities Australia urged the government to adopt a definition of education agent that “captures only those receiving commission for the direct recruitment of students on behalf of Australian institutions”, arguing this would provide greater certainty to universities and ensure compliance requirements remain proportionate.
The International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) also raised concerns that the proposed definition remains overly broad. In its submission, the association warned that, without clearer definitions and published guidelines, existing arrangements – such as subcontracted marketing services or partnerships with education businesses – could inadvertently fall within the scope of education agent, increasing compliance burdens and legal risks.
For these reasons, IEAA reiterated its earlier recommendation that the definition be adapted from the National Code 2018, or that an exemption schedule be developed covering government agencies, TNE partners, and contracted marketing firms.
TEQSA-related changes and powers
Elsewhere, the legislation also sets out that education providers will require authorisation from the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) – Australia’s national higher education regulator – to deliver Australian degrees offshore.
The Bill will also give TEQSA clearer authority to monitor, and, if necessary, restrict or revoke offshore higher-education delivery, backed by new reporting obligations requiring providers to notify TEQSA of key changes to offshore operations and submit annual reports on all offshore courses, with specific details yet to be defined.
Julian Hill, the federal government’s assistant minister for international education, recently defended this part of the Bill saying: “All that this part of the Bill is doing is making sure that TEQSA, as the regulator, has a line of sight to what providers are doing offshore – that’s all.
“Right now, TEQSA, as the regulator, simply doesn’t have the data-flow to know reliably which providers are delivering in which markets… There’s no more power; there’s no more red tape; it’s simply saying: ‘You need to get authorisation.’
“It’s straightforward. Everyone who is currently delivering automatically gets authorised. But then they just have to tell the regulator, so that they can run their normal risk-based regulation.”
In its submission, IEAA said it supports the changes, providing they “do not penalise existing Australian education providers’ partnership arrangements/contracts with their offshore partners”.
However, IEAA suggests a “phased implementation timeline that allows for some providers who are mid-way through contract signing with offshore partners to not be unnecessarily caught up, delayed or burdened by this new measure suddenly being enforced”.
IEAA also argued that the Bill’s nine-month decision period for TEQSA – which could be stretched to 18 months if extended – is too long, warning that such delays would hinder providers’ ability to respond to opportunities and innovate. A three- to six-month timeframe would be more appropriate, it said, noting that long approval windows could deter offshore partners already navigating lengthy timelines for establishing new TNE agreements.
Requiring notifications for every change in course offerings would impose a significant – and unnecessary – administrative burden without delivering meaningful regulatory benefit Go8
The Group of Eight also raised TEQSA’s new requirements in their submission, writing: “There is no material difference between courses offered by Monash University onshore in Australia and those at Monash Malaysia. Requiring notifications for every change in course offerings would impose a significant – and unnecessary – administrative burden without delivering meaningful regulatory benefit.”
Go8 said that without further clarity on reporting requirements, it is “difficult to determine whether this aligns with the intended light-touch approach” that the government has signalled.
“For self-accrediting universities, reporting obligations should be kept to an absolute minimum and clearly linked to risk mitigation, ensuring compliance does not create unnecessary administrative burden. Importantly, reports should not request information that TEQSA can access through existing systems,” said Go8 in its submission.
Sector consultation
A lack of consultation was a major point of contention during last year’s debate on the previous iteration of the Bill, and several submissions argue that this continues to be a concern.
English Australia acknowledged the “extensive engagement” undertaken by Hill, as well as ongoing consultation by the Department of Education – and noted that several improvements had been made since the 2024 version, including the removal of proposed enrolment caps.
However, the ELICOS peak body added that “the vast majority of feedback” provided during the inquiry has been ignored and that the limited consultation that characterised the earlier Bill has “equally marked the drafting of the current version”.
English Australia urged the government to pause the Bill to allow time for a collaborative and robust consultation with the sector peak bodies, and also to allow time for economic modelling on the cumulative impact of its provisions on the international education sector and the wider economy.
“ITECA has been unequivocal in lending support to measures that will genuinely enhance integrity objectives,” wrote ITECA CEO Felix Pirie in its submission.
“As you will appreciate, ITECA cannot lend such support in the absence of collaborative and open dialogue, especially when the sector is ambushed by the tabling of legislation in the parliament. Improved integrity must be delivered through improved integrity and transparency in government processes, decision-making and collaborative engagement with the sector.
Pirie and his team are recommending that should the reforms pass, they be subject to review by an external reviewer within two years of commencement of those provisions.
It’s been about eighteen months since this podcast last visited Australia. The story at the time was about something called “the Universities Accord”, an oddly-named expert panel report which was supposed to give the Labor government a roadmap for re-structuring a higher education system widely believed to be under enormous stress.
Since then, lots has happened. There’s been an international student visa controversy, a whole ton of cutbacks at institutions (including a quite wild polycrisis at Australian National Universities) and a general election which saw the Labor Party unexpectedly returned to power with an increased majority.
So, what’s on the agenda now? To answer that question, we called up long-time podcast friend Andrew Norton, currently Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, and Policy and Government Relations Adviser at the University of Melbourne, and as usual he’s here to give us the straight dope down under. Our discussion ranges pretty widely over developments in the last 18 months: to me the most interesting question is why the government has been so slow to move on key aspects of the Universities Accord. Andrew’s answer to that question is, I think, pretty revealing, and should resonate both in Canada and the UK – quite simply, left-wing governments aren’t as different from right-wing ones as you might think when it comes to delivering change in higher education.
The World of Higher Education Podcast Episode 4.2 | Higher Ed at the Ballot Box: Australia’s Election and the Accord with Andrew Norton
Transcript
Alex Usher: Andrew, welcome back. Last time we talked was about 18 months ago, and the Universities Accord report had just dropped. There were a whole bunch of recommendations about funding, job-ready graduates, access, system regulation, and even something odd about a national regional university. Labor had about a year and a half between the time the report came out and the election this past May. What did they do with that time? What aspects did they move on most quickly?
Andrew Norton: It was a bit of an odds-and-ends approach. The big, expensive changes to the way students and institutions are funded have really been postponed. But they’ve done a range of things.
They’ve introduced a national student ombudsman—the first national complaints organization for students. They’ve created a new system for funding people in preparatory courses. They’ve increased regulations on universities to support students who are struggling or at risk of failing.
Mostly, they’ve done things aimed at helping students, while the big structural work is still to come.
Alex Usher: So, they did the cheap stuff?
Andrew Norton: Essentially. They did the things that were cheap for the government but shifted costs onto the universities.
Alex Usher: And with the other elements, did they say no to any of them? Or did they just leave it quiet—maybe we’ll do it, maybe we won’t?
Andrew Norton: The thing they’re attracting the most criticism for is the Job-Ready Graduate student contribution. Back in 2021, the previous government radically redesigned how students pay for their education. The idea was to encourage people into courses the government wanted, like teaching or nursing, by discounting student fees, and to discourage others by raising fees in areas the government regarded as “not job-ready,” like humanities and social sciences.
The Accord’s final report said the system should change—go back to something closer to what we had before, where there’s a rough relationship between fees and likely future earnings. But the government has deferred this to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC), which currently exists as a website but doesn’t yet have legislation. That legislation will probably come early next year.
So, the earliest possible date for changes is 2027, and quite possibly later. The government is getting a lot of criticism because, while fees were being increased, they said it was a bad thing and that they’d fix it. Yet first they sent it off to the Accord review, then to ATEC, and now who knows when it will actually happen.
Alex Usher: So, there’s a lot of kicking the can down the road at a time when institutions are having financial trouble?
Andrew Norton: That’s true. A lot of institutions are reducing staff and cutting courses. Exactly why varies—some are still struggling with international student numbers, some with domestic enrolment. But the key problem is that costs are rising faster than revenues.
They’ve signed wage deals that are well above inflation, while government grants are only indexed to inflation. So they’re in a situation where they have to control costs, and staff numbers and courses are one of the few levers they have left.
Alex Usher: You mentioned international students. One of the things we noticed here in Canada—because we went through the same thing a few months before you—was this whole notion of international student caps. The idea was similar: there was a perception, I’m not sure how true it was, that international students were affecting the housing market. Both Labor and the opposition supported caps; they just disagreed on how severe they should be. What actually happened on that front? Are there caps, and how are they regulated?
Andrew Norton: I think the answer is: sort of.
The background is that in the second half of 2023, the government started to believe that international student numbers were contributing to housing shortages and rising rents. Many in the sector agree there’s some truth to that. If you add up all the students, ex-students on temporary graduate visas, and people on bridging visas—often students waiting on another visa—you’re probably looking at around a million people in a population of about 27 million. It’s hard to argue that it has no impact on the housing market.
The government introduced a range of migration measures: making visas more expensive and making it harder to get a student visa in the first place. But this wasn’t really affecting Chinese students, who remain the largest single group in Australia. So in May last year, they introduced legislation that would have put formal caps on the number of students each university and education provider could take. Everyone thought this was certain to pass, since the opposition also supported caps.
But in a big surprise last November, the opposition changed course and didn’t support the bill. Combined with the Greens’ opposition, it couldn’t get through the Senate and didn’t become law.
Instead, the government recycled the caps idea at the “national planning” level. The main feature was that once an institution hit 80% of its allocated number, further visa applications would go into a “go-slow” lane. The implied threat was that if an institution went over in future, there could be penalties. But so far, that hasn’t happened.
So now we’re essentially back to a migration-driven set of restrictions on international numbers.
Alex Usher: Before we get to the election, there was an interesting article—I think it was in Times Higher—about the idea that universities had nobody in their corner going into the election, that they’d lost some of the social license they once had.
Part of it was about the very large vice-chancellors’ salary packages, which have been an issue for a long time—many presidents earning over a million dollars. But there have also been persistent stories about wage theft, with universities systematically underpaying employees. Then there are the narratives about “management gone mad” and cuts—particularly at the Australian National University.
Is it true? Are universities more friendless in Australia than they used to be? Or is there something different this time?
Andrew Norton: I think there is something different this time. It’s not just that there have been a lot of issues.
On wage theft—as the union calls it—this has mostly resulted from universities relying heavily on casual or sessional employees. Payroll systems are complex, with different rates for different activities. It is genuinely hard to get right, but it seems almost every university has failed to align payroll systems with how people are actually employed.
As a result, about half the institutions have had to repay staff or correct wages they didn’t pay the first time. Roughly half a dozen universities are now facing high-level enforcement by workplace authorities, putting them in the same category as traditional rogue employers like those in retail.
The optics are terrible: people on very low wages aren’t being paid correctly, while vice-chancellors are earning over a million dollars a year. That contrast doesn’t look good.
The real big change, though, is political. The Liberal Party opposition has long been skeptical of universities, but what shocked institutions was that the governing Labor Party took the Accord review and, if anything, has been even harsher with universities than the previous government.
That’s why universities are reeling. They expected that after the change of government in 2022, life would get easier. It certainly hasn’t.
Alex Usher: Let’s talk about the election. Your election was only about a week after ours in Canada, and it seemed like a very similar story: a weak center-left government on course to be crushed by a right-wing party. But then that right-wing party suddenly didn’t seem so cuddly once Trump had been in office for two or three months. I think the difference, though, is that higher education actually played some role in the Australian election. What promises did the different parties make?
Andrew Norton: That was quite unusual. Higher education usually isn’t an election issue in Australia. But this time Labor picked up on discontent over student debt in its first term.
The issue was that we index student debt to inflation. And like in many other countries, there was a post-COVID inflationary period. At one point, indexation was around 7% in a single year.
I think that triggered what I’d call a latent issue. Over the 2010s, there was a big increase in student numbers and, correspondingly, in debt. We ended up with about 3 million people holding student debt, totaling over 80 billion Australian dollars. That’s a very large constituency. Labor realized that while this hurt them in their first term, maybe they could turn it into a positive.
They did something similar to what’s been discussed in the U.S.—or in some cases done in the U.S.—which was to promise cutting all debts by 20%. They announced this in November last year. During the campaign they didn’t push it hard until the final week, when they really started to focus on it.
There was a late surge in support for the government, which gave them a very large majority. My theory is that the 20% cut—which was worth more than $5,000 to the average person with student debt—was enough to swing people over the line and deliver Labor its big win.
Alex Usher: What I found odd about this is that debt doesn’t actually affect your payments in Australia, because you’ve got one of the purest and original income-contingent systems in the world. Cutting debt by $5,000 only reduces the length of time you’ll be paying—for example, my debt is paid off in 2050 instead of 2055. I’m amazed that would move the needle so much, because next year what everybody pays is still a function of their income, not the size of their debt. So how did that work?
Andrew Norton: I think it’s because the debt issue had become so salient in people’s minds. The strange thing is that, at the same time, Labor also promised to change the repayment system in ways that would actually reduce how much people repay this year, under laws already operating now. But that got almost no airtime.
When journalists called me, I’d ask, “Do you want me to talk about this too?” And they’d say, “What’s that?” There was zero recognition. It just wasn’t being highlighted.
One reason might be that the repayment change isn’t straightforward. While the average person will repay less, everyone will now face a marginal repayment rate of 47%—that’s including income tax plus the 15% of income they have to repay once they’re over $67,000 Australian.
As this comes into operation, I think there could be political problems. But during the campaign, the overwhelming focus—99%—was simply on the debt cut.
Alex Usher: Let’s be clear about that, because it’s interesting. Australia has always had an income-contingent system where, if you were below a threshold, you paid nothing. But as soon as you went over that threshold, you paid a percentage of your total income, not just the marginal income above the threshold.
Andrew Norton: The change is that it’s now a marginal system. And the threshold for starting repayment has moved from $56,000 Australian to $67,000. So a whole lot of people are now out of the repayment system as a result.
But there’s a downside: more people will see their debt keep rising through indexation, because they’re not making repayments—or their repayments are smaller than the amount added by indexation. I think that’s going to be a problem.
Alex Usher: What’s the marginal rate above that?
Andrew Norton: It’s 15% above $67,000, and then it goes up to 17% at $125,000 a year. Those are high numbers. Once you set a high threshold, you’ve got to set high repayment rates to bring in a reasonable amount of revenue for the government.
Alex Usher: Now that Labor has been reelected, what do you think their agenda looks like for the next three years? Which parts of the Universities Accord that they passed on last year are they actually going to move on? You’ve mentioned the Job-Ready Graduate program and the regulator. Anything else?
Andrew Norton: One thing they’ve already done, consistent with some of their earlier moves, is new legislation on what they call gender-based violence. That’s going to be quite complex regulation for the sector to manage.
The big issue ahead is how they’ll distribute student places in the future. Their general mantra is “managed growth.” What they’re aiming for is a system with much more government control over the number of student places at each university, and likely also more control over which courses those places are allocated to.
At the moment, universities have a maximum grant, but aside from niche areas like medicine, there’s effectively no control over how those places are distributed internally. And even though universities eventually use up all their public funding, they can still enroll more students if they’re willing to accept only the student contribution. Some universities have been quite happy to do that.
Alex Usher: Similar to what we have in Ontario.
Andrew Norton: Exactly. The universities that are currently what we call “over-enrolled”—taking more students than they’re being fully funded for—are feeling vulnerable. Some of them will find this shift very difficult to manage.
Alex Usher: So, the government wants to control domestic student numbers through this mechanism, and they’re effectively going to do something similar for international students through a system of caps, perhaps. Are they going to move on caps again, and will it be in line with this whole notion of managed growth?
Andrew Norton: I think so, yes. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission has said it will regulate international student numbers in the future—at least in the university sector. Presumably there will be some coordination between the domestic and international totals.
In the past, there’s been discussion of saying international students should make up no more than a certain percentage of total enrollments. Some universities already do this voluntarily, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a maximum percentage is formally set.
Alex Usher: It’s interesting you mention growth, because we’ve just been talking about how difficult it is for universities to balance their budgets. If there’s no new money—either from domestic sources or international students—how are they going to grow? I just saw, I think it was today, that the University of Melbourne is giving up on building a second campus.
Andrew Norton: That’s partly due to problems with the particular site they had chosen.
To backtrack a little—when they say “managed growth,” that doesn’t necessarily mean actual growth. They used the same phrase for international students even when the goal was clearly to reduce numbers. So in that case, it was really managed degrowth rather than growth.
What they do want in the long run, as recommended in the Accord, is for a higher percentage of people—particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds—to acquire a university degree. That’s the growth they want to achieve.
The challenge is the student market. The school-leaver market, in my analysis, is probably recovering after being flatter than usual. Universities that rely on school leavers are likely the ones that have managed to over-enroll.
But the mature-age market is in a long slump, apart from a brief spike during COVID. I don’t think that market will fully recover, because many in that cohort have already earned their bachelor’s degrees at a younger age and aren’t returning in the same numbers as before.
Alex Usher: With all these restrictions—fewer international students, slumping domestic enrollments, and declining government funding—what do you think the system looks like five years from now? By 2030, is this a sector that’s found its mojo again, or are we looking at long-term decline?
Andrew Norton: I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks in some other countries, where demographics are worse than in Australia. But I do think the 2020s will continue to be a difficult period.
We’ve been talking about potential structural changes in the labor market and the impact of AI, which could devalue a degree. That could cause shocks in the system we haven’t yet seen.
Higher education has survived numerous ups and downs in the labor market over the decades. Usually, any drop-offs are short-term, and then growth returns. But maybe this time is different—I’m not sure. Right now, we’re not seeing huge effects of AI in either international or domestic enrollment numbers. But it’s definitely possible that, once we start seeing negative labor market signals—like new graduates struggling to find work—that could hit demand.
Alex Usher: Andrew, thanks for joining us on the show.
Andrew Norton: Thanks, Alex.
Alex Usher: And thanks as always to our excellent producers, Sam Pufek and Tiffany MacLennan, and to you—our listeners and readers—for joining us. If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode, or suggestions for future ones, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected].
Join us next week when Marcelo Rabossi from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella returns to talk about new developments in Argentina’s university financial crisis, and the showdown between Congress and President Javier Milei over a new higher education law. Bye for now.
*This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service.Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.
The Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI), in a submission to the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Education, has urged the Labor government to link student visas to the institution of initial enrolment.
The association, established in October 1996 to uphold the credibility of education agents recruiting students for Australian institutions, proposed that any change in course or institution should require a new visa application, with the existing visa automatically cancelled upon such a change.
“This proposed reform means that a student’s visa would be directly linked to the education provider (institution) listed in their initial Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE) at the time of visa approval. The student would be required to remain enrolled at that institution,” read a statement by AAERI.
The association expalined that if a student wishes to change their course or education provider, they must obtain a new CoE from the new institution, apply for a fresh student visa, and once again demonstrate that they meet all Genuine Student requirements.
“Such a measure will strengthen the integrity of Australia’s student visa program, reduce exploitation in the education sector, improve compliance with Genuine Student (GS) criteria, and safeguard Australia’s reputation as a provider of high-quality international education,” it added.
“Additionally, this reform will support ethical education agents and reputable institutions by discouraging course-hopping and misuse of the student visa system, thereby enhancing student retention and sector stability.”
Such a measure will strengthen the integrity of Australia’s student visa program, reduce exploitation in the education sector, improve compliance with Genuine Student (GS) criteria, and safeguard Australia’s reputation as a provider of high-quality international education. AAERI
Based on AAERI’s submission, such a policy would align with Condition 8516, which requires students to remain enrolled in a registered course at the same level or higher than the one for which their visa was originally granted.
As per reports, education loan applications from India, one of Australia’s biggest student markets, have quadrupled since the Covid pandemic, with the number of loan-seeking students expected to rise further.
With many students relying on Indian public and private banks for education loans, changes in their courses in Australia have often led to their original loans being considered void, placing many at significant financial risk.
“Based on our communication with several Indian banks, if a student changes their course or education provider after arriving in Australia, their loan arrangements may need to be reassessed, taking into account new course fees, institution credibility, and repayment ability,” stated AAERI.
“The original loan is void and stands suspended. This poses significant financial risks for students and impacts their compliance with visa conditions.”
According to AAERI, the problem is also prevalent among Nepali students, with nearly 60,000 currently studying in Australia.
The association also highlighted examples from other study destinations that Australia can learn from in implementing the proposed framework.
While New Zealand allows course or provider changes but may require a variation of conditions or a new visa, especially for pathway visa holders or when moving to lower-level courses, in the UK, the student visa system is closely tied to licensed sponsors through the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies, so changing institutions generally requires a new CAS and immigration permission.
In Canada, stricter rules have been implemented requiring international students to be enrolled at the Designated Learning Institution named on their study permit, and to change institutions, students must apply for and obtain a new study permit, emphasising the importance of linking visas to specific institutions.
“Australia’s recent reforms, such as closing the concurrent CoE loophole and requiring CoEs for onshore visa applications, are steps in a similar direction but do not go far enough to address the core issue of unethical student poaching, misuse of student visa and provider switching,” stated AAERI.
AAERI’s call for action comes at a time when the return of the Labour government is viewed as “offering little comfort to an international education sector already under-siege”, as highlighted in a recent article by Ian Pratt, managing director of Lexis English, for The PIE News.
In Anthony Albanese’s second term, the Prime Minister established a new role – assistant minister for international education – and appointed Victorian MP Julian Hill.
“It’s important that students who come here get a quality education… This sector is complex and Julian Hill is someone who’s been involved as a local member as well, and I think he’ll be a very good appointment,” Albanese stated at a press conference this week.
This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Andrew Norton, Professor of Higher Education Policy at Monash Business School, Monash University.
The thoughts of Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director, on the levy can be read on the Research Professional News website here.
For an Australian reader the UK immigration white paper’s proposal for a levy on international student fee revenue sounds familiar. In mid-2023 just such a levy was suggested for Australia by the interim report of a major higher education policy review. Like its UK version, the idea was to reinvest levy revenue in education. While the interim report lacked white paper status, education minister Jason Clare liked the idea enough to mention it in his report launch speech.
But now the levy has vanished from the Australian policy agenda. When the Universities Accord final report was released in February 2024 the levy idea was there but postponed, shunted off until after other major funding reforms that will start in 2027 at the earliest. So far as I can find, the Minister – newly reappointed this week after Labor’s election victory on 3 May – has not mentioned the idea in public for 18 months.
So what happened? Predictably, the universities that stood to lose the most from the levy opposed it. But the bigger reason was that between mid-2023 and late 2023 the politics of international education in Australia were turned upside down. In a few months international education went from a valuable export industry to a cause of Australia’s housing shortages. International student numbers had to be cut.
As originally proposed in Australia the international student levy was not linked to migration policy. Some reduction in student demand was predicted, as levy costs were passed on through higher fees. But this was a policy side-effect, not its goal. If too many international students were deterred the levy would not raise enough money to achieve its domestic objectives. The Government needed more effective ways of bringing international student numbers back down.
Between October 2023 and July 2024 the Australian Government introduced, on my count, nine measures to block or discourage would-be international students.
Among the Government’s nine measures was one that delivered it international student revenue much more quickly than the proposed levy. The Government more than doubled student visa application fees from A$710 (~£330) to A$1,600 (~£745), claiming that the money would be spent on policies benefiting domestic students. During the 2025 election campaign Labor said it would increase visa fees again, to A$2,000 (~£930). The UK’s £524 fee looks cheap by comparison.
Higher visa fees and other migration measures had two big advantages over the once-proposed levy from the perspective of the Australian Government – legal ease and speed in delivering on migration goals. In Australia, many migration changes can be made by ministerial determination without parliamentary review. The levy required legislation. Australia’s system of sending controversial legislation to often-bruising Senate inquiries increases political costs, even when the bill ultimately passes.
What visa fees lack is the Robin Hood element of the Australian levy as proposed. In 2023 the University of Sydney alone earned 14% of all university international student fee revenue. The top six universities received more than half of the total. Levy advocates argue that these gains are built on past taxpayer subsidies and prime real estate. Profits built on these foundations can legitimately be taxed for the wider benefit of Australian higher education.
In Australia generally, and under Labor governments especially, an egalitarian political culture gives these levy arguments some resonance. But for the foreseeable future migration is a bigger issue than university funding, and visa policies a more straightforward way of bringing down international student numbers than levies. Perhaps the levy idea will return, but the government’s long silence on the subject suggests that this will not happen anytime soon.
