Employment and Skills

Submissions

ACCI have been working on two submissions on members’ behalf this week. 

• Essential Skills Pathway briefing note response

The draft of this submission is currently with members for feedback. It makes the following key points: 

• Expand the Essential Skills pathway to replace existing labour agreements and cover all industries facing labour shortages, rather than limiting it to the care and support sectors.
• Incorporate practical safeguards, building on successful elements of existing labour agreements, to ensure a fair and supportive work environment for migrant workers.
• Tailor minimum standards within the Essential Skills stream to specific sectors, with additional oversight in higher-risk sectors to protect both workers and employers.
• Take an evidence-based, data-driven approach to determining genuine labour shortages, preferably using the existing analyses provided by Jobs and Skills Australia and the Jobs and Skills Council.
• If retaining labour agreements and Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMA) –
  • simplify and standardise the processes for DAMAs, industry labour agreements, and company-specific labour agreements to reduce complexity and allow quicker response to labour market needs.
  • Establish a consistent framework for all types of labour agreements to reduce confusion for employers and ensure that all agreements adhere to the same core principles and protections.
• Provide additional support to small businesses, particularly in regional areas, to help them navigate the migration system and access the workers they need.
• Ensure that the Essential Skills stream distributes benefits equitably across both metropolitan areas and regions with chronic labour shortages, helping sustain the economic viability of regional Australia.

• Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill 2024

In the draft of this submission, which is currently with members for feedback, we have largely supported the measures in the Bill, with 3 exceptions: 

1. We have questioned the administration of the Commonwealth Prac Payment, as we can’t see what legal mechanism higher education providers will have available to them to provide money directly to students – this is a key difference from the VET sector that the government may not have considered. 
2. We have recommended that the Fee-free Uni-Ready courses should be able to be administered by a broader range of providers to give students optimal choice.
3. We have argued that requiring higher ed providers to allocate 40% of the Student Services and Amenities Fund (SSAF) revenue to student-led organisations will likely lead to some students involuntarily making payments to student unions, which is contrary to amendments made to the Higher Education Services Act in 2005 when compulsory student unionism was abolished.

International student caps announced

Education Minister Jason Clare announced his approach to capping international students this week. Public universities have received their institution-specific numbers, with TAFE and private higher education providers due to receive them imminently, if they haven’t already. Private VET providers, however, will not see their specific caps until the legislation passes. 

ACCI has been working with members to attempt to analyse the figures provided by government in context – this has proved impossible as the government has been opaque about the source of their data, and certain relevant data is yet to be publicly released.

The following has been gleaned from a variety of public sources, discussions with DEWR and communications sent directly to providers (thank you to ITECA for providing):

• There will be a National Planning Level (NPL) for new international student commencements of 270,000 for calendar year 2025. This is designed to bring new international student commencements across higher education and VET back to pre-pandemic levels.
• There is a lack of clarity regarding the exemption for ELICOS in the context of providers delivering ELICOS and VET (for example) whether packaged or otherwise and in different scenarios. 
• An international student will count as a New Overseas Student Commencement (NOSC) when they are onshore and start their first non−exempt course at their first provider, and subsequently each time the student commences a non−exempt course at a different provider. 
• For publicly funded universities, the managed growth approach, in aggregate, will result in around 145,000 new international student commencements in 2025, which is around 2023 levels.
• Independent higher education providers will have their new overseas commencements limited to 30,000 for 2025
• Public providers, including TAFEs, will have 2025 VET allocations closely aligned to 2023 new commencement levels.
• The Government’s managed approach will see around 95,000 new VET international student commencements in 2025, using the new NOSC measure. 
  • For context, using the standard measure of a commencement that the sector has always used and we all recognise, there were 192,594 commencements in the VET sector in 2023. Independent providers support approximately 96 per cent of these. Moving to 95,000 from 1 January would be devastating. 
  • DEWR indicates the reduction would be much less severe but we have yet to see the modelling or way in which it is developed. 
• Providers with a higher ratio of international students will receive a lower allocation, in a move the Government suggests will encouraging them to diversify their student base.
• For VET providers whose international students accounted for less than 80 per cent of the provider’s total student numbers in 2023 (based on National Centre for Vocational Education Research calendar year individual student data – which is set to be released on 5 September), the Government intends that a provider will be able to maintain new overseas student commencements in 2025 at approximately 2024 levels.
• There will be an exemption for certain categories of courses and students from the NPL. These include school students, higher degree by research students, standalone English−language courses (there remains considerable uncertainty about what this means in practice for a provider offering ELICOS and other AQF programs), non−award courses, study abroad and short−term university exchange students, those that are part of an Australian transnational education twinning arrangement, and those from the Pacific and Timor Leste.
• It is important to note that 2026 settings are unlikely to reflect 2025 settings which creates further uncertainty for members in the year ahead.

Carve-out of Tradies from the Specialist Skills Visa

ACCI was approached by the AFR this week to provide comment on Allegra Spender’s call for the government to remove the carve-out of skilled tradespeople from the Specialist Skills Visa. Andrew McKellar provided the following quote: 

“We need specialist tradespeople now more than ever. We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, we’re transitioning to net zero, the government wants a future made in Australia – to exclude these occupations from the Specialist Skills list now, when there is such a distinct need for the expertise that this particular migrant group can bring into the country, defies logic. We think there is real value in the Specialist Skills Visa pathway, but it should be applied equally. If you meet the salary requirement for the high-skilled category, you should be eligible to apply for the visa, regardless of the work you do.”