A WA parliamentary question on notice addresses concerns about WA universities' reliance on international students, standards, treatment of whistleblowers, staff casualisation, and border reopening lobbying. The Minister declines to offer an opinion but acknowledges the importance of international students.

AnsweredQoN 1143Legislative Council
Asked
21 October 2020
Portfolio
Education and Training

QuestionView source ↗

UNIVERSITIES — INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
1143. Hon CHARLES SMITH to the Minister for Education and
Training:
I
refer to the recent article in WAtoday entitled '''We will not
be viable': WA university leaders call for state borders to
reopen''.
Does the minister concede —
(a) Western Australian universities
are over-reliant on international students;
(b) WA
universities have dumbed down entry and teaching standards for international
students;
(c) the persecution of whistleblowers like Gerd
Schr�der-Turk at Murdoch University was disgraceful;
(d) wage theft
and over-casualisation of staff is a systemic problem in our universities; and
(e) WA
universities are putting dollars ahead of lives by incessantly lobbying to open
Australia's borders throughout this pandemic?

AnswerView source ↗

I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(a)–(e) The question is seeking an opinion on each of the
five parts, which I am not obliged to give under the standing orders.
However, I will confirm that international students are an important part of
the WA community and economy.

Explore WA Government Data

Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.

Explore more